Seafret

An indie folk duo hailing from the seaside town of Bridlington in East Yorkshire, United Kingdom, Seafret achieved broad recognition in 2016 upon unveiling their Columbia Records debut album, Tell Me It's Real. Ahead of that major-label outing, a pair of EPs and a relocation to London had set the stage for their next full-length effort, Most of Us Are Strangers, which surfaced in 2020. After circling back to their Yorkshire origins, the pair delivered the five-song EP Anywhere from Here in 2022.

Their story began with a random meeting at an open-mike night near Bridlington, where guitarist Harry Draper and vocalist Jack Sedman first heard one another perform. Each was struck by the other's playing, prompting an immediate decision to collaborate. Living near the shore, they chose the name Seafret to capture both the summer haze rolling off the North Sea and a lighthearted nod to a guitar fretboard.

Online attention in 2014 led them to London, where the move sharpened a songwriting focus on absence from the coastline of their youth and from family. September brought their first release, the Give Me Something EP on Sweet Jane Recordings. With more than two years of prior writing behind them, they followed quickly with the Oceans EP at the start of 2015. Most of that year went into touring, including stripped-down acoustic shows in coffee shops, while they shaped songs for Tell Me It's Real, issued by Columbia in early 2016.

Back in their hometown soon afterward, they turned to a second album, Most of Us Are Strangers. Singles appeared gradually through the late 2010s before the February 2020 release. Two years later came Anywhere from Here, an EP whose five tracks drew from their reconnection with native Yorkshire during the COVID-19 pandemic.