“I’ve always wanted to make music that I could believe in, to convey a search for truth and share the hidden desires I’ve always felt.  My songs carry with them the struggles and hopes that I have faced in my own life.” –Gordon Roqué

If you ask Gordon Roqué what his musical background is, he’ll be inclined to tell you that he learned music by sitting on a beach as a teenager for countless hours and thinking about life while staring out into the sea. As unusual as this might sound, it pretty much exemplifies who he is as a musician and a human being.  There has always been a sense of exploration and discovery in his life and work.

Having grown up on a tropical island in the South Pacific called American Samoa, Roqué spent many years hearing the calming rhythms of crashing waves by his seaside home.  He always took the time to commune with the endless blue ocean.  It was his blank canvas–an infinite space for his imagination to grow.  He often thought about the world beyond and underneath the blue, about the truths concealed just below the surface of things or the unknowns just beyond the horizon.

It was this desire for discovery that prompted him to teach himself to play the piano after only six-months of formal training when he was just seven years old.  His musical education has been an endless succession of unearthing skills and abilities he did not know he had.

Life outside of music also presented other discoveries.  Roqué would come face to face with hardships within his own family and with the joys and challenges that come with loving someone deeply. Roqué says that there have been battles hard-fought and wounds still healing.

This is all hugely apparent in the songs from Roque’s debut album “Seahorses”.  From the uptempo bluesy-ness of “Villain” to the vintage music box feel of “Mr. Stranger” to the understated and string-laden “Tears In Savannah”, an unfailing desire to explore multiple musical textures is quite evident.  From an emotional and lyrical standpoint, there is the percussive anger in the fiery song “Fear”, the sense of isolation in “The Boy In the Room”, and the slightest glimmer of hope in the piano/cello ballad “Pale Sunshine”.   Roque’s own tender, private losses are honestly shared.

With the ocean as his teacher and his life as his guide, Gordon Roqué forges an unconventional musical path.  In his music, there are unfathomable depths just underneath a clear, smooth surface, a vision encompassing far more than the eyes can see.

© 2009 Gordon Roqué  All Rights Reserved.