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KING FLOOD

2007-11-28T02:32:00.004+01:00

March 3, 2009 - Sorry for the lack of news, back in business now. I have set up a Myspace page for my new project Foxtrot Empire, which I'm having plenty of fun working on with my buddy Louis Pontvianne. Please check out the first two songs we've uploaded and drop us a line. Feedback, as always, is very appreciated ! http://www.myspace.com/foxtrotempire

September 1, 2008 - The new Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra album, Spin Vows Under Arch, is now out on Beta Lactam Ring Records. First edition of 500 numbered copies in a full color book bound CD case and full color booklet available mid June 2008. Featuring Charlemagne Palestine, Martyn Bates, Matt Shaw, Jessica Constable, Kris Force, Jean Marie Mathoul, Far Black Furlong and more. Check all about the album and listen to a few samples on this page.

June 3, 2008 - Apollolaan recordings are now taking orders for "the Breather Key EP" by 230 Divisadero. Recorded by Nick Grey & Matt Shaw in Monaco, 3 tracks, just under half an hour of music. This release follows on from the experimental nature of "A Vision of Lost Unity" available on Milk & Moon recordings and last year's self titled, more song based album on Locust.
Strictly limited to 50 Hand painted, numbered and written covers.
Tracklisting :
01 - Palimpsest. 02 - I Have Long Meditated Upon The Rise And Fall Of The Great Death. 03 - Palindrome.
Visit http://www.apollolaan.co.uk or http://www.myspace.com/apollolaan to order your copy!

May 26, 2008 - The new Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra album, Spin Vows Under Arch, will be out on Beta Lactam Ring Records soon. In the works : collaborations with Chris Bozzone on a dozen tracks for a Bozzone & Grey album; a new EP for Matt Shaw's label Apollolaan, etc.

April 15, 2008 - Out now : Grey Force Wakeford cd. Read all about it here. CD presented as a 6 pages digifile based on a fantastic original artwork by David V. D'Andrea (www.dvdandrea.com) who is amongst others famous for his posters and covers created for Ulver, Queens of the Stone Age, Witchcraft, OM, while the digifile design was made by famous graphic designer John Heiden for Smog Design in Los Angeles (www.smogdesign.com) who does works for Pink, Suzanne Vega, A-Ha, Van Halen or Christina Aguilera amongst others.

November 27, 2007 - The 230 Divisadero debut album got some glowing reviews, mainly in The Wire, Boomkat and Popmatters - they can be read here. More to come soon. Also, new collaborations are in the works! Yes, music is currently being made with Susan Matthews (I have been bathing in her awesomeness for weeks by obsessing over five of her records), Chris Bozzone (deeply haunting stuff, I hear this man in my sleep), Far Black Furlong (one of their stunning tracks will be featured, in an adapted version, on the upcoming Spin Vows Under Arch cd), and more.

06/11/2007 - Matt Shaw and I are excited to announce the release of the 230 Divisadero debut album. Check it out on Locust Music ! Reviews here and here.

09/09/2007 - Added a new VIRB page right here : www.virb.com/nickgrey MP3 versions of my songs will from now on be available on this page.

27/06/2007 - Spin Vows Under Arch, the new Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra album, is finally completed. Its nine tracks - 56 minutes - feature participations by various wonderful artists who helped me shape out the songs, such as Charlemagne Palestine, Martyn Bates, Jean Marie Mathoul, Jessica Constable, Far Black Furlong, Kris Force or Matt Shaw. Many thanks to all of them. No release date confirmed yet - but more soon. In the meantime, a first draft of the probable cover art can be seen here.

25/06/2007 - There's a new Empusae + Nick Grey 3" cd out on Brume Records - check it out here. Beautiful packaging! Also, the tour in Poland with 230 Divisadero and Tex La Homa went extremely well, except for the occasional insane taxi driver, so many thanks to all the wonderful people that helped us out and welcomed us so warmly.

17/04/2007 - There's a new Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra record, The Candlelight Eyes EP, available from Barl Fire Recordings... 40 minutes of pure murk, recorded in 2003 but released for the first time only now. Copies are available directly from me as well, right here.

29/03/2007 - I have started working on a new Nick Grey album - Nine tracks are in the works so far. The record should move a step away from the "symphonic" aspects of Thieves Among Thorns while retaining some of its most minimal, stripped-down singularities. At least I hope so. Lots of bass. My mother says the record sounds like a mixture of Sunn O))), Mark Hollis and "chamber music heard through a thick pillow". That sounds a bit pretentious doesn't it ! Not sure yet about the title, still hesitating between The World Mountain and Spin Vows Under Arch. These pieces will feature some extremely special guests - I am very much indebted to them all. All will be revealed in a few months.

26/03/2007 - Very excited to announce these 230 Divisadero & Tex La Homa gigs in Poland, in June :

19.06 Gdansk, Kafe Delfin, www.kafedelfin.prv.pl (230 Divisadero)

20.06 Sopot, Dworek Sierakowskich, www.dworek.art.pl (Tex la homa)

21.06 Warsaw, Jadlodajnia filozoficzna, www.filozoficzna.art.pl (230 Divisadero + Tex la homa)

22.06 Cracow, Kawiarnia naukowa, www.kawiarnianaukowa.ovh.org (230 Divisadero)

12/02/2007 - A new Tex La Homa ep, named Apport, is out now on Milk & moon recordings. A first couple of reviews are available here and here. This record is close to my heart for obvious reasons (see the news item below) but I can assure you this is one of the finest pieces of music I've heard this year - blows me to pieces every time - and I really hope you'll all enjoy it as much as i do. Well done Matt!

01/02/2007 - 230 Divisadero sign to Locust : Matt Shaw and I are very proud to announce that we have now signed with Locust Music of Chicago Illinois. Our debut album will be released around September time, 2007. Please check out www.locustmusic.com to read all about what Locust have been up to recently and check back here and also at myspace.com/230divisadero very soon for more details, tracklisting etc, etc... Also, a new track, For Cody, has been added to our Myspace page. More news about another project coming soon !

23/01/2007 - I did a track called "Black Paper, Mountain" for the RUFS compilation, which was just released by Fenêtre Records. Other artists involved in the comp are Greg Haines, Svarte Greiner, Rigil, and many more. Check it out here. A lot more news coming very soon.

01/12/2006 - There's a new track by my other project 230 Divisadero, Storm in December, on the Silber Sounds of Christmas compilation, which is available both in free download or on cd.. There's quite a lot of excellent songs in there so check it out !

20/11/2006 - There's a funny interview of my sweet self online on Tokafi - thank you Tobias. Also, various new reviews here and here. Finally, stay tuned for new updates on Milk & moon recordings' website : our next releases will be a wonderful EP by Tex La Homa, and the reissue of my own debut album Regal Daylight - both coming in February.

07/11/2006 - Incredible - I just stumbled across this video of my father on Youtube. It's an excerpt from Verdi's Simone Boccanegra (1984 at the Met in New York) - not my favorite opera but still, amazing to find this.

26/10/2006 - Thieves Among Thorns on Boomkat ! Also, new reviews about our various stuff here and here.

09/09/2006 - Thieves Among Thorns is now available from the website of my mini-label Milk & moon recordings.

05/09/2006 - I've uploaded two new songs (The World Mountain and End Of All, both from Thieves Among Thorns) on my Myspace page.

01/09/2006 - There's an incredible review (Album of the month) of Thieves Among Thorns by Julian Cope on the Head Heritage website. Also, three new reviews of the 230 Divisadero EP from Popnews, Foxy Digitalis and Terrascope

31/08/2006 - Friends, my LP Thieves Among Thorns is out now on Hand/eye. Copies will also be available from my own label Milk & moon recordings' website very soon; in the meantime feel free to contact me directly if you'd like to grab a copy (price is 13 USD by paypal, worldwide shipping included). Deepest thanks to all of you.

Price (shipping included) : 13 USD
Paypal to nicolaimoldoveanu@yahoo.com

A note from Timothy Renner: "Thieves Among Thorns" is one of the best albums I have heard in years - one of my favorite albums Dark Holler • Hand/Eye has ever released (though, to be fair, I am rather biased to them all). Still, I find this work enchanting and haunting in all the right ways. My highest recommendation.

18/ 08/2006 - 230 DIVISADERO - A Vision of Unity EP is out now ! Check out the Milk & moon recordings website for more info.

02/ 08/2006 - And still more reviews : A Découvrir Absolument (230 Divisadero), Tokafi and Scare Culture (°catlandgrey°).

25/ 07/2006 - New reviews added : °catlandgrey° in Les Inrockuptibles, Popnews, Legends & A Découvrir Absolument; 230 Divisadero in The Broken Face, D-Side & Smother Magazine; and Thieves Among Thorns in Gothtronic. All this is available right here. Also, my LP Thieves Among Thorns should be out on Hand / Eye very soon in a special packaging, and 230 Divisadero's EP is still scheduled for release on Milk & moon recordings on August 7th.

28 /05 /2006 - The website for 230 Divisadero, my collaboration with the incredible Matt Shaw (of Tex La Homa) in now online.

20 /05 /2006 - News "en vrac" : my first album, Regal Daylight, is again available directly from me, or rather from the Milk & Moon website. Those of you who wonder what Regal Daylight is about can read a couple of older reviews (ex : The Wire; ReGen) Other news : some new reviews of °catlandgrey° are available right here, and an update of the Milk & moon site is in the works - details of our two next releases (230 Divisadero & Far Grey Furlong) will be announced. Oh and I removed the Rarities section, which really sucked.

05 /05 /2006 - Matt Shaw (of Tex la homa) and I are currently working on a new project, named 230 Divisadero - there will be a first EP published on Milk & moon recordings very soon, and a full album scheduled for later in the year. The band is still in its very first phases, and more info should be available soon. In the meantime you can check out a short biog. of the project and a couple of song excerpts on our myspace page right here.

07 /04 /2006 - Folks, °catlandgrey° is out now on Milk & moon recordings.

°catlandgrey°
[MILKMOON02]

Eerie stuttering fostpolk / folktronica with a taste for sunshine and Temesta, by Nick Grey & Nihiruneko. An oneiric, surreal & psychedelic trip to the World Mountain. Also : incredible lyrics, featuring the words “Limousine”, “Italians”, and “Foam”; and a cover with a gecko on it.

°catlandgrey° is available in hand-numbered black digipak for only 12 $ - shipping included, of course.

PRESS :

Every month I hear some great music, and I feel privileged to be able to recommend it to Back On The Tracks subscribers, but this is the kind of CD that makes my job positively magical. °catlandgrey° is a duo comprising Canadian composer Nick Grey and a chap called Nihiruneko, who is described as “an owl-guitarist from Japan, now living in France”. Now that’s what I call a line-up.
(...) I turned the volume up and shut my eyes. The first line of the song turned out to be, “Hello good people, my name is Jesus, I live in a trailer outside town” and a shiver went right up my spine. I spent the next 34 minutes in a world of strangeness and mystery. - Back On The Tracks http://www.backonthetracks.com/

Nick Grey is involved with this, and anyone who has enjoyed his orchestral work will find this equally intriguing I daresay, as he teams up with a demented Japanese guitarist, Nihiruneko. Together they make what the press release insists is ‘eerie stuttering fostpolk, which I hope is a typo.
- Mick Mercer http://www.mickmercer.com/

Mp3 samples on www.myspace.com/milkandmoon
The info-sheet for the press can be downloaded HERE

Note : The (very) limited 15 $ - edition comes with a creepy animal hand-puppet

Also available from Milk & moon : Nick Grey + Nicholas Davis - Les Eaux Territoriales.

27/03/2006 - New track uploaded on my Myspace page, Vercors. It's the result of a beautiful collaboration with Kris Force (Amber Asylum). Additional musicians feature Shaman Doria (clarinet) and Nicholas Davis (guitars). Check it out here.
Also, °catlandgrey° will be released in a couple of days!

18/01/2006 - I have been working recently on a tiny specialty label on which I'll publish some of my music, mainly collaborations or hand-made productions such as the Unclear Perspectives mini-series. Milk & Moon recordings' first releases are Les Eaux Territoriales (out now), and an eerie, fost-polk-ish side-project on which I've worked with Nihiruneko, named °catlandgrey° (out in March). Other projects are in the works. The records can be purchased on http://www.milkandmoon.com/, and of course more info about each release is available there as well. Distributors, shops & labels please e-mail me for wholesale prices. Many thanks to Timothy Renner, Kris Force, TOPI and Barl-Fire Recordings for having helped me sort things out and for their excellent advice.

PS. Canada ? Heavenly.

08/01/2006 - I am moving to Canada tonight. In the meantime, you can check out our brand-new tiny family label Milk & Moon recordings, on which I'll publish some of my music (especially collaborations, such as the Unclear Perspectives series or the °catlandgrey° album) in 2006. Also, keep an eye on Thieves Among Thorns, out on Hand/eye soon.

28/12/2005 - I am the guest artist of December's 2020s.

02/11/2005 - I know I'm late but... My deepest, kindest wishes to Hasmig "Pinkerton" and Rodolphe for their beautiful union ! I miss you folks.

31/10/2005 (B) - You have to buy Troy Von Balthazar's LP.

27/10/2005 - Busy days... knee-deep in Visa trouble, actually. Indeed - I'm moving to Canada from January to July '06, so I suppose my current activities will slow down a bit until then. In the meantime, a couple of interesting reviews from Elegy Magazine and In_Tension, both available here.

06/10/2005 - I am now a full member of the international cult collective 48 Cameras. This is the inevitable consequence of my rencontre fortuite with Jean Marie Mathoul : after exchanging impressions about Stuart Staples, Frank Sinatra and our own records, we came to the conclusion that some serious work needed to be done. You can find extensive information about 48 Cameras and their prestigious collaborators (Gerard Malanga, Michael Gira, Charlemagne Palestine...) on their website. This move, of course, doesn't change anything about my other activities, releases and plans. More soon...

03/10/2005 - Another set of kind words about us on G.O.D.

27/09/2005 - A beautiful, in-depth review of Les Eaux Territoriales has been published on Heathen Harvest, another one (in French) by the excellent label/webzine Axesscode, and a pointless, incomplete one is available on Funprox. Well... bad reviews can be fun to read, sure, but good ones are better for the ego, aren't they ? Also : you can now subscribe to my exhilarating Newsletter by clicking the link on the right. And finally, some very good news about Thieves Among Thorns very soon. Check your mail. Cheers - Nick

11/09/2005 - Another excellent review of "Les Eaux Territoriales" - this one's been published by the French magazine D-Side. Check it out here.

08/09/2005 - A couple of interesting reviews of "Les Eaux Territoriales" have been posted on Mouvement Nouveau and Connexion Bizarre, and a small and useless Playlist section has been added to this website. Also : our kindest thoughts to our friends from Avant

02/09/2005 - I discovered Jeffrey Roden's music on the advice of the excellent Tobias from Mouvement Nouveau... Forget about my appalling power-pop instincts : Jeffrey's music has moved me deeply, and has allowed both my heart and brain to visit new territories. You can get lost in ether right here.

30/08/2005 - I must have a problem : I love the new LP by The Tears (you know - the guys from Suede). Can't seem to stop playing it. What is happening to me ? God, what is Love doing to me ? Also : I'll be adding a playlist section very soon, and a wonderful annoucement about Thieves Among Thorns will be made, too. And ... a deep THANK YOU to all those of you who purchased "Les Eaux Territoriales" until now. Reviews should follow. Cheers! - Nick

10/08/2005 - Les Eaux Territoriales is available now. You can purchase it here

27/07/2005 - Added a MySpace page here.

14/06/2005 - An interview for the elegant Mouvement Nouveau magazine is now available here.

23/05/2005 - "Regal Daylight" got a 8,5 out of 10 in the German musikmagazin Orkus, and managed to make it to their Top Ten. German-lovers and skeptics, read all about it here.

20/05/2005 - Woe on me ! Shame and scandal in me family ! New stuff about us here, here, and here.

01/05/2005 - New track added in "Rarities". Hate Sundays.

26/04/2005 - The "Rarities" section has been added. It features a paleontological assortment of Unreleased Tracks and Pre-historical Demos. Should be updated from time to time.

230 Divisadero - S/t (media)

2007-11-28T02:29:00.001+01:00

230 DIVISADERO - S/t
Label: Locust Music
Release date : September 2007

230 Divisadero

230 Divisadero

Locust CD

230 Divisadero's music is uniformly slow but doesn't ever drag, either because the rippling waves of loops, guitar lines, percussion and electronics have their own slow energy, or else the music dissolves into an area where speed simply can't me measured as such. The due of Nick Grey and Matt Shaw, based in Monaco and the UK respectively, invite a wide range of musical comparisons.

Their music is song based - and there are some good tunes on show - but even at their most straightforward they can take odd turns. "Hands", for example, is a pretty song set to a beginner's piano but disintegrates towards the close. They weave found sounds into the spartan keyboard figures of the hushed "Porte-À-Faux", and here they seem set back from the listener, communicating directly but from a distance, like Bark Psychosis at their most enigmatic.

Other comparisons that spring to mind are the long, unravelling guitar lines of Talk Talk on the opener "How I Keep Myself Energised" and, elsewhere on that episodic nine minute song, the rapt concentration of Current 93. But 230 Divisadero have their own strong identity, albeit one that resists pigeonholing. Their approaches to songform vary greatly from late night balladry, to pastoral reveries, to sections where the vocals are echoed so their meaning becomes blurred and indistinct, as on "Lèri Archar". That's a kind of neat summation of the album as a whole, as it passes back and forth across the border between lucid thought and a hypnagogic, dreamlike state.

Mike Barnes

THE WIRE 286 DECEMBER 2007

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Quietly beautiful, lucidly imagined - About seven years ago, when I was just starting at music reviews, Matt Shaw's Tex La Homa EP became one of my first no-name record ephiphanies, a series of songs so darkly, delicately lovely that it seemed impossible that no one had—or would—take notice. Shaw's partnership with Nick Grey, named 230 Divisadero, is utterly different, more electronic, dotted with samples, shimmering with sustained keyboard notes and pulsing with bright organic beats. And yet it is equally beautiful, equally unexpected. It starts with the ten-minute long “How I Keep Myself Energized” a slow-building, multilayered exercise in musical lucidity that sounds, at first, like the more abstract Yo La Tengo cuts. Utterly pop at some moments, yet laced with found sound and split in two by ear-shaking distortion, it is bold without being in the least inaccessible. “Hands”, coming second, is even better, high, chalky piano notes in a duet with ruminating lower tones. Eternity, the song seems to say, is made up of trivial moments, one after another, each perfect and beautiful. “When will you realize that what wastes your time / Is what makes it worth all?” the song asks. The duo can accomplish lovely, fairly conventional folk songs, and yet what's arresting here is the intersection of the beautiful and strange. “Port-A-Faux” is ominous and gorgeous, voices cut to a mutter, and tones allowed to stretch taffy-like over incredible distances. “Now I'm falling… Now I'm falling” Shaw sings, slowly, words spaced, the hiss of space in the background… but how can you tell falling from flying?

8/10 on Popmatters.com

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. After a self-released EP of drone atmospherics, the duo of Britain's Matt Shaw and Monaco's Nick Grey are set to unleash their first proper full-length collection for Locust, who describe the 230 Divisadero as 'transcontinental' - as far as I'm aware they're both still in Europe right? Between the two of them Shaw and Grey evoke a kind of dusky, ambient intensity, tampering with a host of instruments and assorted sound-making devices. The music here is effectively in 'song' format, but there's a far looser feel to the composition of these pieces, perhaps due to an absence of drums and the inclusion of electronic reshaping and abstract production techniques. The looping piano phrase that runs throughout 'Hands' maintains a sense of structure whilst all manner of effects and stray signals lope around it. The slow motion vocal style at times recalls David Sylvian's Blemish in all its emotional resonance and curious detachment from the music, but there's a more ominous, almost gothic tone to what's going on in the background, with bottom-heavy guitar drones that clearly take influence from the Southern Lord crowd. By the time you get to 'Leri Achrar' it's all gone a bit The Devil Rides Out, with woozy, incantatory spoken-word vocals and a gloomy hum of guitar distortion, and as the album progresses from this point it becomes clear that the apocalyptic influence projected by the likes of David Tibet and Steven Stapleton looms over this album. - Boomkat

Nick Grey - Thieves Among Thorns (media)

2006-09-05T15:10:00.000+02:00

NICK GREY - THIEVES AMONG THORNS
10 tracks, 53 minutes
Label: Hand/Eye
Catalog #: H/E022
Release date : August 2006

On Head Heritage (Album Of The Month), review by Julian Cope :

Note: As I prepared this review, I dutifully checked Nick Grey’s myspace site to make sure I wasn’t overlooking any obvious details, and immediately fixed my eyes on Holy McGrail’s Slomo project there among his ‘friends’. Excellent. Most of the time, McGrail and I live industrious indoor lives with our heads down in front of a computer, he in mysterious Yorkshire and me in mysterious Wiltshire. So it was great to have arrived at this record and chosen it naturally, to discover that we’re both reading from the same heathen hymn sheet. Rock’n’roll or watt.

A Quick Fix of Melancholy

There’s a place in the heart of almost every Englishman between the age of 40 and 70 that exists in the rarely used front parlour of his mother or father’s parents’ house, a place where he remembers sitting in school shirt and short trousers enduring what seemed like endless childhood hours self-consciously swinging his legs on an overly-large Victorian settee, his heels occasionally accidentally kicking the velour in an abstracted manner to the obvious displeasure of his father, as both of his parents chatted endlessly to grandma about the weather and Auntie Maggie’s bad back, while a slightly de-tuned radio set in the back room broadcast the kind of Radio 4 drama that was always accompanied by eloquently played but fragmented and tinny schoolroom piano; beyond the net curtain freedom was the stifled chatter of children and cars passing silently.

Nick Grey’s new album reminds me of those days, technically pre-psychedelic but still rather mind manifesting in a too-much-sugary-tea and not-paying-enough-attention-to-the-grown-up-conversation kind of way. THIEVES AMONG THORNS shines in a blissful times-lost-that-never-really-existed manner, its pastoral chords and hymnal air constantly undermined by little Roger in the other room fiddling with some new and too noisy mechanical invention and getting his hand slapped for it by mother. The piano based songs on THIEVES AMONG THORNS all recall tunes I’ve known all my life, yet this collection rings, nay zings with newness. It gleams with a clarity and poetic truth heard only in the work of the most confident of artists. For the lovely genius of this record lies in its adherence to its own metaphor, probably located initially with great effort by the artist but thence defined, executed seemingly effortlessly. On this album, nothing kicks the listeners out of their melancholy for one moment, and I was careful when making tea to select not my usual large Orkney mug depicting heathen temple The Ring Of Brogar and the Viking cathedral of St. Magnus and the Old Man of Hoy, but instead this English Republican chose to drink from a fine china beaker celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee presented in 2002 to all the local children by Cherhill Parish Council. For, as I’m always at pains to point out, acceptance of the artist’s own metaphor is essential in order to maximise one’s enjoyment of that art.

There’s little point in describing each song that Nick Grey has brought before us on this exceptional album. Suffice to say, nothing is out of place and nothing stands out except ALL of it, yet it is neither an album of songs nor an album of purely experimental works, the record standing shamanically and entirely successfully at the doorway between both genres just as John Cale’s THE ACADEMY IN PERIL attempted but ultimately failed to do. For whereas Cale was tempted to undermine the pastor within him by adding inappropriate elements that made us not wince perhaps, but most certainly flinch, instead Nick Grey’s masterful acceptance of his own metaphor ensures that - as all has been dedicated to ensuring the completeness of the trip – nothing up-ends the continuity of our listening pleasure. Indeed, this album is one of the most truly ambient records I’ve heard in many a year, and rotating it endlessly can send the listener close to catatonia and nudging sleep.

The preponderance of fizzing technology and cut-ups keeps the record far outside any so-called Keltic zones, placing it firmly in a Germanic realm, as though Grey were sitting at the piano in the sitting room, but hemmed in by a VCS3 synthesizer half-inched from the physics lab by an older brother, as self-animating mechanical toys and half-broken robots interrupt the proceeding from time to time by bursting suddenly in to life. And yet there are no disruptions that shake us too much from Grey’s spell, even the American radio voices are appropriate to the overall downer atmosphere. THIEVES AMONG THORNS sounds most of all as though a thoughtful radio DJ had created a special Sunday afternoon selection made especially to accompany the hours between 2.30-6pm. For this is no midnight album, neither is it an evening album, but invokes that time-honoured Sunday afternoon time-slot after the World War 2 movie but before SONGS OF PRAISE. I know because I’ve played it at all hours of the day and never yet on a Sunday, but the music of THIEVES AMONG THORNS conjures up that ultra specific moment every time and without fail.

If I were to compare this record to others, I should say its pleasure centres would best be paralleled by making up a compilation from any of the less gothic/more rural tracks from Nico’s DESERTSHORE or MARBLE INDEX LPs, ‘Are We Dreaming?’ from Kevin Coyne’s 1978 LP DYNAMITE DAZE, ‘Vowels’ from Ulver’s wonderful A QUICK FIX OF MELANCHOLY E.P., the harmonium-based ‘Window Shopping For A New Crown Of Thorns’ by my own The Teardrop Explodes, almost anything from David Wrench’s epic and criminally underrated LP BLOW WINDS BLOW, Armand Schaubroeuk’s exquisite version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, most anything from the out-of-character Cale-obsessed fourth album of Japanese band Overhang Party , several of the piano based Residents tunes that appeared on NOT AVAILABLE, moments of NEU 75 and large chunks of Cluster’s SOWIESOSO. Luckily, however, that compilation is unnecessary because Nick Grey’s new album reaches all of the above and much more.

For foreign listeners, I would recommend THIEVES AMONG THORNS if you wish to know what was the essence of the post war English living room. For it is not the self-regarding too-drum heavy jangle pop of the perpetually mournful Morrissey and The Smiths, nor is it the wonderful but too dark northern Englishness of Joy Division, rather it is the slightly out of reach simultaneous ebbing and flowing of joy at what we once had tempered by gentle grief at what we’ve lost. For the Englishman does not, I believe, really wish to kill himself, nor does he wish to kill others. Like this fabulous record of Nick Grey’s, the Englishman probably most wants just to be left alone and… well, to contemplate his own inevitable death whilst fiddling with his own stuff in a shed or back room filled with meaningful artefacts accumulated over his life, and with enough light to see properly and, of course, a brew.

- JULIAN COPE

"Thieves Among Thorns" is one of the best albums I have heard in years - one of my favorite albums Dark Holler Hand/Eye has ever released (though, to be fair, I am rather biased to them all). Still, I find this work enchanting and haunting in all the right ways. My highest recommendation.

- TIMOTHY RENNER (Stone Breath)

My first impression was of a pastoral, quite orchestral, feel to the sound. Soon I was more aware of something darker, perhaps even brooding, going on. Nick Grey's lyrics are sometimes reflective, at others oblique and, especially on the pieces featuring piano from Jasmine (or "hamsig") Pinkerton, I formed the impression that Mr. Grey might have a few Peter Hammill albums on his shelves. Mysterious songs swathed in autumnal mists… oh - they're rather nicely packaged too! (JC)

- BOA MELODY BAR

230 Divisadero - A Vision Of Lost Unity (media)

2006-07-19T14:15:00.000+02:00

230 DIVISADERO - A VISION OF LOST UNITY EP
Label : Milk & moon recordings
Catalog #: MILKMOON03
Release date: August 2006
Buy here

. Another trans-Atlantic collaboration, this time between Canadian Nick Grey and Brit Matt Shaw, 230 Divisadero deliver a one-track, half-hour EP that ebbs and flows in the minimalist, ambient snorecore style of Windy & Carl, Stars of the Lid, Aarktica, et. al. The set begins with a bubbling cauldron of underwater sonar bleeps and blurps until the soapbox sermon-spouting looney from Godspeed You Black Emperor's “f#a#oo” wanders across the room breathing fire and brimstone and warning us all of impending death and doom, while ominous electronic buzzings and disembodied voices chant in the background. Nick and Matt add some distorted chanting of their own that occasionally sounds like your typical bongwater mouthwash gargle!
Cellist David Widmer adds a buzzing didgideroo vibe and I was reminded of some of Richard Chamberlain's hypnotic encounters with the aboriginees in Peter Weir's “The Last Wave.” There's a metalic industrial sheen to some of the middle passages that again invoke cinematic images, this time of the barren landscapes and factory scenes form David Lynch's “Eraserhead.” In fact, the album often recalls that wonderful soundtrack, particularly in its creation of unsettling scenes of loneliness and hopelessness. Recommended to fans of ambient snorecore, imaginary film soundtracks, Godspeed, Coil, Nurse With Wound and the World Serpent crowd. - Foxy Digitalis

. Ce n'est pas dans le sillage du succès du deuxième volet du "Pirates des Caraïbes" qu'on surprendra en parlant de la fécondité de l'imaginaire marin. Caravelles parties pour un horizon qui pourrait être la mort, sirènes et autres monstres des eaux, cartographie inquiète de ce qui se trame dans les bas-fonds (et qui peut toujours avoir quelque rapport avec les remous de l'inconscient), la traversée des mers est une épopée en soi. On peut savoir gré à Matt Shaw (Tex La Homa) et Nick Grey (48 Cameras), ainsi qu'à leur violoncelliste prodige (David Widmer) d'avoir ranimé la mythologie noire des marins sur "A Vision of Lost Unity". Ce EP, constitué d'une seule pièce musicale de près d'une demi-heure, tisse, entre drones, soundscapes, sonars lointains et omniprésents d'un côté, ponctuations acoustiques discrètes de l'autre (violoncelle lancinant et crève-cœur, voix d'outre-tombe), une trame fluide et pourtant riche de nuances qui happe l'auditeur, l'immergeant (littéralement et métaphoriquement) dans les eaux troubles de la déréliction ("Man is a lonesome shadow as are all creatures under his sign"). Ce premier essai, malgré son opacité, peut ravir un large public, des fans de gothique aux amateurs d'electro ambient. Moins cérébral, plus organique et réussi que la BO de Björk accompagnant, sur des thèmes proches, le film "Drawing Restraint 9", il devrait connaître une prolongation sous forme d'album dans les mois à venir. A suivre. - Popnews

. “A Vision of Lost Unity” is one long (28 minutes) piece of music from 230 Divisadero , which slowly engulfs you like a rising tide, as you lie, shipwrecked, on the rocks far from your home. Filled with swirling synths and slow motion drones, the music is desolate and lonely, compelled to look inwards for the answers. At 12 minutes the music seems to reach a crescendo of loss before slowly retreating back into itself, with some exquisite strings adding to the atmosphere, the music slipping back into the ocean of silence from whence it came. - Terrascope

. Mais quelle faute a bien pu commettre Nick Grey pour fuir la terre ferme ? Quelles sirènes aux voix séductrices ont bien pu l'entraîner au large avec maints compagnons d'infortune ? Ici accompagné de Matt Shaw (Tex La Homa), l'artiste résolument international s'embarque une fois de plus en des eaux inexplorées et mystérieuses, épaulé par une cartographie marine tout aussi porteuse de rêves étoilés et de remous rédempteurs. Un périple d'une demi-heure qui traverse autant les profondeurs brumeuses d'une ambient délétère (à la lisière de la dark et space-ambient) que les saveurs mélancoliques d'un post-rock à la Godspeed You Black Emperor ou celui plus traditionnel et progressif de Harvestman (projet de Steve Von Till/Neurosis). Un mélange qui ne perd à aucun moment de son attrait, pour ne pas dire de sa force hypnotique. A tel endroit on évite les récifs menaçant, à d'autres le roulis que subit la frêle embarcation de nos marins se fait presque palpable tant est si bien que le doute que les deux puissent arriver à bon port subsiste jusqu'au bout. Un scénario épique se construit progressivement, ponctué par les drames et le désespoir (omniprésence du violoncelle/narrateur) et la promesse de regagner une terre hospitalière. La courte coda qui s'impose après le silence abrupt offre un fin des plus ouvertes quand à la conclusion de l'aventure des deux protagonistes. La réponse se trouve très certainement dans ce trip superbe dont il faudra à l'évidence sonder les différentes escales avant de statuer sur ce "Dit du vieux marin" musical, moderne et enchanteur. - Guts Of Darkness

. 230 Divisadero is the duo of Matt Shaw and Nick Grey and their quite recent debut recording is a CD-R EP entitled A Vision of Lost Unity ( Milk and Moon ). It's an album consisting of one 28 minutes long underwater ceremony constructed from all sorts of misty drones, pulses, non-word vocals, hallucinogenic electronics, feedback attacks and mournful cello playing. This is good stuff that manages to surprise by combining subtle drone characteristics with repetitious aggression. - Broken Face

. En partant en voyage ensemble Matt Shaw (tex la homa) et Nick Grey (18 cameras) ne se sont pas chargés de valises ou d'appareil photo numérique. Des micros des instruments de musique et une culture du domaine de l'inné dans le cadre de Nick. A vision of the lost unity est un voyage à travers les océans au milieu des baleines et des sirènes qui ornaient les cartes des navigateurs au long court qui savaient ce que voulait dire départ. En un unique morceau de 28 minutes ce sont des contrées sous la brume que nous visitons, des lieux d'où s'échappent à la voix des chœurs attirant et le vrombissement du danger perpétuel. Entre post rock et electronica vaporeuse, ce EP redonne au sens d'aventurier une âme, loin des balises Argos et des gps, loin de la technologie et des avidités de records, plus prêt de la vie et de la mort. - A Découvrir Absolument

. Eerie psychedelic songs that weave electronic ambience in with noise and abstract modernism. Droning thunderous repetitions lull you but then your smacked with harsh distorted tones. A long track of almost half-an-hour, “A Vision of Lost Unity” reminds me of Sunn 0))), Earth, Pink Floyd, Clock DVA, and the Tear Garden. Pulsating waves of sonic acid weave through the tapestry that was expertly mixed with precision. Interesting and yet wildly disturbing all at once. - Smother magazine (Editor's pick)

. (...) Même degré d'intemporalité sur le très planant et opaque EP de 230 Divisadero, projet commun de Nick Grey (48 Cameras) et Matt Shaw (Tex La Homa), et dont le nouvel essai se constitue d'un seul titre de vingt-huit minutes. Réalisé par transmission de données entre Canada et Angleterre, A Vision of Lost Unity présente un amalgame sourd, ambiant et nébuleux, que fracturent en douceur sons de cordes désenchantés et psychédélisme rampant. Le drone est dans la place, et ses premières expansions précèdent un album complet, sur lequel on attend d'apprécier la fusion de l'organique et de l'électronique. - D-side magazine

°catlandgrey° - S/t (media)

2006-04-07T17:34:00.000+02:00

°catlandgrey° - S/t
Label : Milk & moon recordings
Catalog #: MILKMOON02
Release date: April 2006

°Catlandrey° - Les Inrockuptibles n° 555 du 18 au 24 juillet 2006

Electronica – Des ballades oniriques mais sous menace, par un duo virtuel.

Remercions une fois de plus l’autoroute de l’information pour avoir relié entre elles des îles et autorisé la libre circulation des idées et des sons. Rien, ainsi, ne prédisposait un Canadien, Nick Grey, et un Japonais, Nihiruneko, exilé poétique à Paris, à travailler ensemble : les rêves et les songes y auraient beaucoup perdu, tant cet album onirique se fait un malin plaisir d’accompagner, avec une délicatesse insistante, chaque instant d’abandon. Un genre de psychédélisme miniature, éclairé à la bougie plutôt qu’à la pyrotechnie, empruntant son bucolisme au folk, mais aussi son anxiété à l’electronica et au free-rock. Il y a un lézard sur la pochette, mais aucun dans ce disque.

Céline Rémy / Les Inrocks

. A la vue du curieux batracien qui surgit des nuages sur la pochette de l'album des non moins bizarrement nommés Catlandgrey, on devine que l'on a affaire à un univers surréaliste. Quant à savoir si cet univers-là tient plus du déjanté que de l'onirisme, une première écoute permet de pencher assez vite pour la seconde hypothèse : lenteur à tous les étages, arpèges de guitare sèche et sans effets (de manche), à la Montgolfier Brothers, s'imposent d'entrée. En bonus et crédités sur l'album : hululements de chouettes + philosophie par le Japonais Nihiruneko, et cris perçants ("squeals") du Canadien Nick Grey - ces deux-là font la paire pour transformer de petites mélodies tristes et simples en projet conceptuel ambitieux, et atteignent sur ce court album une profondeur souvent impressionnante. Jamais pesante, la mélancolie sourde, tenace, qui traverse °catlandgrey°, tient moins du lyrisme de Low que des morceaux les plus sombres de A Silver Mt. Zion : mêmes bruitages répétitifs et angoissants, même nostalgie d'un paradis perdu ; on se croirait coincé au milieu d'un tableau de Jérôme Bosch - la petite bébête sur la pochette évoque d'ailleurs une créature de "La Nef des fous" ou du "Jardin des délices terrestres". Délicieuse vision de l'enfer, donc, que propose le groupe, empreinte d'un mysticisme et d'une nostalgie quasiment bibliques, et aux références religieuses explicites, parmi lesquelles, et non des moindres, le deuxième titre, "An Attempt to Reach the Hand of God (Lacking Rythm)", est sans doute à comprendre à la fois comme une orientation artistique (ou même vitale) et comme une pirouette ironique. De même, des "Interludes" - en fait les morceaux 3, 5 et 7 - viennent brouiller les pistes, soit en désamorçant un moment la gravité de l'album, soit en enfonçant le clou du côté obscur de la force. Catlandgrey prend sans doute au pied de la lettre l'idée selon laquelle le rire est la politesse du désespoir, et en joue à merveille. D'aucuns y verront un album de plus qui explore les tréfonds de l'âme humaine avec ce qu'il faut de résignation pour en percer quelque mystère - dans la lignée d'un Will Oldham, pour ne citer que lui. D'autres, dont je suis, y trouveront une tentative souvent fructueuse de soulever l'enthousiasme - pour le coup, au sens étymologique, et donc divin du terme - qui sied à une introspection sans concession.
- Popnews

. D'une larme coulant, il en fit un ruisseau, puis il partit sur un bateau apporter sa parole. Se voulant simple prêcheur, il ne se faisant pas annoncer, il demanda juste en des temps difficiles un minimum d'attention car le temps, il le sentait, était compté. Alors, grâce à la technique il réduira les distances et parvint à se construire une famille par delà les limites que l'on lui imposait. Mélancolique comme un voyageur solitaire, il jurera de revenir quand sa volonté sera faite. Les pascals pleureront son départ, rien n'y fera, Nihiruneko a décidé de prendre le chemin de Nick Grey, qui par un écho reçu divisera le chemin en avançant derechef. Le point de rencontre, sera Catlandgey, une fusion de folk et d'Electronica, le résultat de deux vies qui décident de se fondre en une. Quand on se souvient du premier album de Nick Grey et de son Random Orchestra, on ne peut être qu'ému de cette réponse qui n'a rien de commun. Combien de larmes pour faire que nous nous rencontrions un jour…Juste assez suite aux écoutes de Dead Fabrizio, tout juste assez après the colony ou the night before thanksgiving, tout juste assez après l'envie de vous prendre dans mes bras. Quelque chose d'éternel et de charnel à la fois. Poignant.
- A Decouvrir Absolument

S'il est loin d'être le seul artiste surréaliste sur cete planète, Nick Grey n'en reste pas moins une des figures les plus mystérieuses et attachantes de cette approche délivrée de tout gimmick ou cliché. Ses mots et ses images sont constamment projetés dans un univers musical à la croisée de l'acid-folk, de la pop décadente ou d'une électronique subtile et jamais envahissante. Rien d'étonnant à ce que ses collaborations avec des artistes d'horizons divers relèvent du même modus operandi, l'osmose émanant de manière flagrante et le résultat sonnant inattendu. Epaulé ici par Nihirenko qui ne semble pas plus en reste côté décalage, l'ami Nick nous convie une fois de plus à rencontrer des personnages et des situations toutes plus poétiques et étranges les unes que les autres. Qu'il revisite l'histoire de Jesus (en fait un gitan qui vit dans 'une caravane hors de la ville'), nous parle de gondoliers qui explosent ou de footballers en colère, l'accroche est instantanée et émouvante. Mélodies impeccables, séquences 'bruitistes' ou automnales, chant doux et posé, la poésie des mots et de la musique exulte en un amalgame intemporel de couleurs, d'odeurs et de photographies prises sur le vifs. Car ce disque est l'histoire d'un voyage, d'un séjour ou d'un moment de solitude partagée, mélancolique mais en aucun cas triste. Ici, le désespoir se mue en une volonté de toucher le ciel du bout des doigts et des rêves, en toute simplicité et sincérité. Plus proche que jamais de l'esprit d'un Current 93 pour les oeuvres les plus mystiques de David Tibet, Catlandgrey s'en démarque par un refus de passer par la douleur cathartique. Un conte folk, atmosphérique, qui évoque une veillée au feu de bois où les batraciens remplacent les scouts et les limousines sont les seuls canoés à remonter le courant. Inclassable, mais avec classe !

- Guts Of Darkness

. A gentle, floating, magical, fairy-tale like collection of dreamy and melancholic pieces by a singer-songwriter from a galactical time-fold. catlandgrey.jpg Keeping his Classical influences in mind it can hardly come as a big surprise that Nick Grey is the son of great Romanian opera singer Vasile Moldoveanu. The latter still defies all rules of modern marketing by refusing to submit to the usual promotion routine. Just like him, Nick has a soft spot for maintaining a private and intimate relationship with his listeners. Although his albums have regularly made the headlines with some of the bigger mags out there, he continues to release at smaller outfits. For “catlandgrey”, his co-operation with Japanese guitar-philosopher Nihiruneko, he has even reverted to taking care of things all by himself, publishing it on his tiny “milk and moon” imprint. And, to put it bluntly: Thank god for that.

Which is not to say that “Regal Daylight”, which was his first truly internationally distributed effort, was any worse for the fact that it received some decent promotion. Quite on the contrary, this miracle mile of timeless glory still shines brightly as being experimental, accessible, contempary, timeless, cooly conceived and romantically inclined. All at the same time, of course. But it is question of common sense that some of the gifts this limited release has to offer, probably would not have made it to the production plan with a “global player”. The creepy animal hand-puppet for example, or the bizarre artificial eye, popping out of the CD tray, when you open it for the first time. And who knows, whether this funny little gecko would have made it to the cover. Which brings us right to the core of the matter, for animals play an inportant role on this record and not only, because Nihiruneko is said to have contributed some owl-howls (where are they, though?). Instead, a lion from another star makes his lyrical appearance and so do camels, if only in the accompanying booklet. Contrary to what one might now be inclined to think, in stark contrast to song titles such as “Dead Fabrizio (A Galaxy of Ever Exploding Gondolieri)” and in right-out contradiction to the press info (which strangely talks about “eerie stuttering fostpolk“), “catlandgrey” has not turned into a far-out psychedelic jam session, but has instead become a gentle, floating, magical, fairy-tale like collection of dreamy and melancholic pieces by a singer-songwriter from a galactical time-fold. Nihiruneko’s salty guitar chords drop like tears onto Nick’s comforting vocal chords, then flow in circles round a lonesome tree on a deserted desert plane. Basically, these would be traditional folk songs, if it weren’t for the samples of clapping audiences, public speeches about “ship wrecks”, japanese poems, castanets, cars driving by, undiscernable creatures roaring in the distance and a choir singing “ahooo!”. But however varied the instrumentation, the basis always consists of a simple harmonic pattern, a sad melody, the guitar and maybe the cello.

Some will call this an album for autumn, but it works just as well on an oppressively sultry summer evening, with the noises of the street and the last lights of the setting sun trickling in through the open window. These two artists have found a common language, which obviously has nothing do with words. Which is another reason, why “catlandgrey” is better off without the help of a smoothly running promotion machinery – none of their cool slogans could ever capture the essence of this release, without sacrificing its meaning. Neither can this review, of course. But as long as this duo continues to communicate with us thorugh their music, they are more than welcome to further defy the rules of modern marketing (and our interview requests).
- Tokafi (Tobias Fischer)

.This is a very disconcerting CD, with a dark underwater kind of feel and a very loping movement. It’s strange how something this pretty can be this strangely disconcerting. The problem I’m having though is since I have a burned CD in a cut case, which is fine really, I don’t have a track listing for it which means it will be hard for me to actually discuss songs other than using track numbers.

Track 2, for one, is a good example at what Nick Grey does. Slow, classical and folk influenced loping passages in both time and introspection. I recall his Les Eaux Territoriales[1] very well. Prior to that, Regal Daylight[2] is another done with his Random Orchestra. Both releases gave us the same indication – that Nick’s work will either be loved or hated because of its unconventionality and loping sadness. This time, on Catlandgrey, he teams up with Nihiruneko.

Track 3 takes a brighter melody over some random foreign language samples for barely a minute and a half – very surreal – before moving into a similar melody with Nick’s brooding baritone vocals. The castanets in Track 4 are…menacing in a way. How something so light and tapping can be described as “menacing” is beyond me, but nonetheless that’s my take on it. The static-laced ghostly movements add a deeper sentiment of strangeness to the track. The short under two minute fifth track has slow moving guitar strums battered by windy curses.

Nick Grey’s work is always some of the most welcome here for the simple fact that it’s so strange and unnerving that I love to delve into it. No matter who he teams up with, his darker aesthetic always shines (broods?) through to be a focal point to hinge your fears on. Catlandgrey is a triumph in that it will awaked deeper emotions in you, caressing your subconscious with its brooding nature.
- Legends Magazine (Marcus Pan)

. Whispery secret songs sung by moonlight in hidden meadows and abandoned buildings (...) a haunted feeling of desolation »
- Dream Magazine

. Nick Grey, collaborateur de 48 Cameras, Kris Force et Jeffrey Roden, a de la suite dans les idées. Après avoir donné naissance à la série de travaux nommée Unclear Perspectives (avec le guitariste anglais Nicholas Davis sur le premier volume), le compositeur et instrumentiste vivant à Montréal poursuit l'aventure du label Milk & moon avec sa nouvelle publication, un °catlandgrey° qui voit surgir un nouveau venu dans son trouble univers : le guitariste expé japonais Nihiruneko, qui poursuit ici avec Grey le dessin d'un genre nommé avec malice "fostpolk / folktronica". La série de huit titres délivre en l'occurence des complaintes acoustiques et hypnotiques, un doux psychédélisme auquel se mêle un field recording discret ou plus perturbateur, et des textes empreints d'humour et d'absurde. Une féerie opaque et étrange se dessine alors tout le long de ces minutes accumulant une folk dégénérée et intemporelle. A écouter les soirs de pluie et, si possible, en compagnie de vos animaux les plus gentils.
- D-Side

. Catlandgrey is the pseudonym of Nick Grey & Nihiruneko. Together this intriguing pair have produced a deliciously diverse album that ranges from instrumental forest folk, ambience, found sounds and the weird and wonderful. Often within a single track, the music swiftly juxtaposes between different atmospheres and emotions.

Introducing their world of future folk, The Night Before Thanksgiving is the most easy to digest track on the long-player, and the most beautiful at that. Sounding somewhat similar to the recent Love And Other Planets album from Adem, as whispy heartfelt vocals sit atop gentle strings and distant drums.
Elsewhere, short interludes separate the more song-based compositions with spooky intervals. The eery sounds and soft plucked strings of the second Interlude recall the gorgeous and rustic experimentation of The Ivytree, yet the first is a spoken-word oddity and the final part, could be a lost song from the Suspiria soundtrack.

The otherwordly Dead Fabrizio sounds like it was recorded by campfire light in a forest, as haunting howls and percussion lay in the backdrop. An Untitled Finished Song is a sprawling 10 minute closing piece, that absorbs French vocals, electronic sounds, acoustic guitars, string instruments and warm, fuzzy atmospherics.

The most interesting part to Catlandgrey is the uncertainty of its origin and sheer diversity. So many styles leave the release impossible to pigeonhole and with each listen, a new sound or discovery is unearthed from within. A baffling but beautiful release that improves with each play.
- Angry Ape

. I knew I was going to fall for this CD when I read the Milk And Moon label’s description of the kind of music they aspire towards making, some of which include “unorthodox gospel laments; music for heartbreaks; semi-absent music for semi-absent people who like the idea of living in the forest but are afraid of the animals ; mountains about to fall.”

With that kind of mission statement it was evident that Catlandgrey was going to be anything but your standard rock fodder. Scanning through the track titles, including Dead Fabrizio (A Galaxy Of Ever-exploding Gondolieri) and The Colony (or how we forgot to board), my anticipation increased. Then, when I heard the understated throb that opens the first track, I was hooked. When that was overlaid with a lusciously chiming instrument of some sort followed by all manner of animalistic electronic noises, I turned the volume up and shut my eyes. The first line of the song turned out to be, “Hello good people, my name is Jesus, I live in a trailer outside town” and a shiver went right up my spine. I spent the next 34 minutes in a world of strangeness and mystery.

Every month I hear some great music, and I feel privileged to be able to recommend it to Back On The Tracks subscribers, but this is the kind of CD that makes my job positively magical. Catland Grey is a duo comprising Canadian composer Nick Grey and a chap called Nihiruneko, who is described as “an owl-guitarist from Japan, now living in France”. Now that’s what I call a line-up.

The nearest I can come to describing what Catland Grey sound like would be to say that they seem to be making the music of disembodied souls, almost as if they’re channelling beautiful but scary sounds from beyond the grave. As it happens, I’m deeply atheistic so I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife, but all the same, that’s what they sound like. In terms of artists who might have influenced them, I’d have to say Leonard Cohen and Brian Eno, and in terms of bands whose music has the same effect on me, I’d say Pearls Before Swine and Sweet Billy Pilgrim. They combine elements of medieval folksiness with elements of avant-garde electronics to produce something absolutely ethereal.

I have enough objectivity to know that this isn’t a CD for everybody, but those of you who enjoy Cohen, Eno and the other artists referenced above will find yourselves transported as I was, into a world where you feel slightly spooked but completely at home.
- Back On The Tracks

. Nick Grey is involved with this, and anyone who has enjoyed his orchestral work will find this equally intriguing I daresay, as he teams up with a demented Japanese guitarist, Nihiruneko. Together they make what the press release insists is ‘eerie stuttering fostpolk, which I hope is a typo.
- Mick Mercer

. Coule-oeuvres et doux leurres toujours, l’inénarrable ulaire de la pop Nick Grey ajoute un projet à son archet, CATLANDGREY avec le non moins populaire érable de l’inné : Thevoicefromcatland. A force de multiplier ses alias, Nick court le risque de produire la même chose, mais puisque monté à l’envers le dandy EMPIrique marche à reculons, ne nous faisons aucun souci. Et ici O veille au grain... rivalisant de superbe avec le gratté acoustique d’herbe à Cashmore. La comparaison au "thunder, perfect mind... of ruine" de CURRENT 93 est non seulement justifiée mais ne porte aucun préjudice à l’originalité du duo, puisque sublimée par l’humour sous-jacinthe (diantre, ces castacoucougnettes !), par une ConStellaTion de clochettes, par les notes d’un doux piano noir, par le chant du non-chat lent. Au final, ce n’est pas l’artiste Gris qui risque de sombrer dans la redite, mais les topiacs à force d’épuiser toutes les façons de crire combien les compos de CATLANDGREY et consorts sont irritantes de perfection, belles à mourir comme l’étaient les verges pour un Genet, fleuries de crises en thèmes jouissives. Nick, vous êtes un arrache-pLeur, soyez-en gracié au Xanax des cieux !
- In_Tension

. Nick Grey n'en finit décidément pas d'étonner. Entamée sur Les Eaux Territoriales, sa série de collaborations se poursuit avec °catlandgrey°, projet qu'il mène de front avec Nihiruneko, un japonais installé dans la capitale.
Géographiquement, rien ne prédestinait ces deux-là à travailler ensemble. Mais les miracles technologiques de notre ère (si si) ont rendu cela possible, pour le plus grand bonheur de nos oreilles. Car °catlandgrey° semble être bien plus qu'une simple collaboration d'un jour, tant les huit compositions livrées par les deux hommes sont homogènes, racées, intelligentes, "intimes"... Doté d'une poésie indéniable, cet album "fostpolk / folktronica" a du génie dans les sons, et prouve magnifiquement bien que beauté, légèreté et humour peuvent se dresser ensemble pour livrer une oeuvre complète et envoûtante.
Quand les guitares à la fois tendres et mélodieuses de Nihiruneko rencontrent la voix suave et aérienne de Nick Grey, cela donne forcément un résultat magique. °catlandgrey° a de quoi apporter de la nostalgie et du rêve dans les chaumières, qu'on se le dise.
- Scare Culture

Nick Grey - Les Eaux Territoriales (media)

2005-09-11T14:48:00.000+02:00

+ Nick Grey & Nicholas Davis Les Eaux Territoriales (Milk & Moon) This CDR release comes housed in a black sleeve with a small square of mirror glued to it’s center. Nick Grey emanates moody mysteries as British guitarist Nicholas Davis undulates and dissolves in shadows. Sustained overtones stumble in a slow motion haze, while other more discernable instruments bob to the surface, and perhaps a ghostly male voice whispers, intones, or chants occasionally. Truly underground feeling.

- Dream Magazine

+ Nick Grey's work has always fascinated me, being both minimal but complicated somehow. Taking simple sounds and twisting them into interesting tones and rhythms. Les Eaux Territoriales is just as bizarre as Nick's previous Regal Daylight(1) release and continues in the fashion he's carved for himself. The CD itself comes in a brilliantly hand crafted construction fold out, with a lovingly hand penned circular fold out displaying track and CD info.
It opens with subtle tinkering harps and deep seated vocal samples, whispered in the background. By track 2 it has grown into a stronger moving track with a heavy rhythm kept in check with guitar accompaniament that anchors it to the center of the music. Subtle changes of backing rhythms will either annoy some or perk the interest of others as it warps the track a little at a time, but not so much that it's noticable right away – the minimalism of the track itself touched with lightly complicated rhythm changes.
The main problem with the second track is its length. Nick's vocals come in rather late and by this time you're getting a little tired of the stoic and slow-moving track. It's quite a long track. Track 3 picks up with bubbly samples that spill into ambient style chords. Subtle vocal utterings join, but don't fall in step with the rhythmless chord strains giving the track a very strange feel and otherworldly effect. It also suffers from the lengthiness, but the closing whispers really up the bar of strange.
Nick Grey is an enigma in the music industry and he's always put out the most bizarre albums and conceptual visions. As a result his work will either piss you off or become a staple in your late-night sessions of estrangement. It can at once push your mind to the limits of sanity, and while the track lengths deter from the overall appreciation at least for myself, it could be this length that allows you to reach meditative places you wouldn't had they been shorter. Grey is certainly not easily pigeonholed and I can barely find a way to compare him to other artists – but if you're looking for a truly surreal trip to "somewhere else," then Les Eaux Territoriales can certainly take you there.

Marcus Pan, Legends Magazine (Nov 2005)

+ Les Eaux Territoriales est le premier volume de Unclear Perspectives, une série de CD chacun centré sur un ou plusieurs instruments. On cherchera en vain l'élément aquatique dans ces eaux territoriales, en revanche on se noiera sans peine, et sans lutter, dans l'atmosphère sonore et obsédante des trois titres de ce CD. Il cite lui-même ses influences, des noms tels que Piano Magic ou Woven Hand. On pourrait y ajouter les morceaux les plus planants et les plus psychotropes de Dirty Three, Neither/Neither World ou encore Arca. J'aimerais trouver les mots pour inviter chacun d'entre vous à se plonger dans ces titres hypnotiques mais à part les noms précités, ce Nick Grey ne ressemble à rien de connu et possède vraiment sa personnalité propre. Les innovations de ce type sont si rares qu'il serait regrettable de passer à côté surtout que le tout est présenté dans un design unique et fait à la main.

Barberousse, Elegy n°38 (Oct / Nov 2005)

+ En l’occurence celles que distille le chantre post-moderne du dandysme NICK GREY. Rarement à court d’idées (ce serait même plutôt l’inverse), le voilà qui lance la série "Unclear Perspectives" - digressions autour d’un instrument particulier pour chaque volume. Ainsi le premier s’organise autour des guitares filtrées de Nicholas Davis pour un voyage vers Les Eaux Territoriales. Deux éléments qui se rencontrent, s’étudient, se lovent l’un autour de l’autre ; pour mieux fusionner : l’eau et la terre, entre sable humide et boue. Quelque part entre la Beauté Absolue et l’Absolu Hideux se trouvent ces terres aquatiques où il fait bon se prélasser sous les rayons d’une bougie, où l’on peut s’abandonner sans risque dans les méandres d’arpèges et de cordes à la mauvaise graine. Ou quand la langueur rime avec apesanteur. C’est un peu ça l’effet Shalabi, et bien plus encore ici. Cette plongée hypnotique de 14 minutes dans des fonds marins presque psychédéliques démontre, si cela était encore nécessaire, toute l’étendue de la palette musicale de ce peintre sonore. Car si la guitare électrique sert de trame, l’univers si particulier du petit homme gris gagne vite du terrain et s’architecturalise de façon complexe autour du leitmotiv de son invité. Une instrumentation riche qui prévaut sur le deuxième titre de cet ep, le très constellationtitulé "deathships of all flags gather around yr. smoke". Cette fois, la guitare opte pour un traitement plus sourd et expéri-menthe à l’eau pour un résultat rivalisant de superbe avec le "i don’t want to be the one" des regrettés COIL. Poignant. Longue vie à cette série donc ! (édition numérotée, chaque exemplaire étant unique car fait-main dans des pochettes différentes, disponible pour le prix d’un paquet de cig’arrête chez www.nick-grey.com)

In_Tension, Spahi (Oct. 2005)

+ Quel plaisir de retrouver Nick Grey et son orchestre aléatoire, ici réduit à la collaboration du guitariste Nicholas Davis. Après la "mort" du pourtant très prometteur Sensitive Records on se demandait quel serait le devenir de ce projet unique et attachant. Nous voilà rassuré, en attendant un nouvel album sur State Art l'ami Nick lance "Unclear perspectives", une série de mini-cds se focalisant sur un instrument spécifique. Pour ce premier volet, c'est la guitare qui est à l'honneur. L'introduction 'Milk and moon' est une invitation à la rêverie, la voix chuchotante de Nick sur fond de thème de harpe annonce déjà l'onirisme qui va imprégner les deux autres compositions. Le morceau-titre est ainsi riche en guitares évolutives, arpèges délicats s'exprimant en choeur avec les instruments à vents et les nappes ambient, le thème évolue dans un mouvement perpétuel d'aller-retour tel un navire baignant les eaux d'un territoire rêvé, faisant mine de s'approcher d'un improbable rivage sans jamais se décider à accoster. 'Deatships...' poursuit ce ballet aléatoire en plus éthéré, la voix se fait écho lointain, mélopée à l'attention des éventuelles âmes perdues au large. Les effets de réverb' et de delays enveloppent à merveille ces compositions d'une douceur apaisante, entre le meilleur des pièces atmosphériques d'un Current 93 et une musique traditionnelle intemporelle et sans nationalité. Car ces eaux territoriales sont celles d'un rêve sur lequel l'on peut embarquer sans se préoccuper de guetter sur l'horizon une quelconque terre à fouler. La lune laiteuse éclaire les marins improvisés et les entraînent loin, très loin...Magnifique.

Guts Of Darkness - Marco, Oct. 2005

+ Connu pour avoir accouché en compagnie de The Random Orchestra d’un premier album surfant aux cimes de l’étrange, le songwriter monégasque Nick Grey, aujourd’hui accompagné du seul guitariste Nicholas Davis, poursuit son périple expérimental. Il regroupe alors trois titres formant le premier volume d’une série nommée Unclear Perspectives, dont le but est de privilégier sur chacune de ses phases un ou plusieurs instruments chers à Grey. Le packaging construit autour de chaque volume de la série est fini à la main et propre à chaque exemplaire, et fait de lui une pièce unique. Artisanat exclusif, pour musique des profondeurs. Les Eaux Territoriales se compose de trois titres dont la pièce centrale et éponyme (13 minutes d’une atmosphère de grande tenue) met en valeur d’ambiantes volutes de guitares claires. Il s’en échappe un feeling américain contenu, d’où s’extirpent les cajoleries vocales de Nick. Dans une optique ambiante, mélancolique et pop dont se ravira tout fan de Piano Magic ou Low, Nick Grey donne une ampleur aquatique à des mélopées cinématographiques pouvant évoquer le voyage, ou sa fin (« Deathships Of All Flags Gather Around Yr Shores »). Inclassable, l’œuvre semble s’affermir autour de choix évacuant le désir orchestral pour toucher l’essence. Choix dont on attend avec impatience les prolongements sur les prochains volumes de la série, et sur une collaboration entre Nick Grey et Empusae annoncée pour la fin de l’année.

D-Side - Emmanuel Hennequin (Sep-Oct 2005)

+ Creaking and humming like the floorboards outside of Arthur Gordon Pyms cabin

Unpacking this is already more fun than listening to most other records: “Les Eaux Territoriales” comes in a slim cardbord box, sealed with a paper-wrapper containing a tiny glued-on mirror. After breaking the seal, another layer reveals itself, giving way to a cover with the image of a cow, which holds the actual CD and a folded booklet. When someone puts so much effort into packaging his album, it must either be a question of love or of covering up his lack of talent. Fortunately, Nick Grey is not just anybody and this EP (or Mini-Album, if you like) follows swiftly in the steps of his already brilliant “Regal Dayligh” full-lenght debut. While that record was picked up by stateart and distributed on a grand scale, “Les Eaux”, a collaboration with guitarist Nicholas Davis, sees him taking a step back to an audience of the few and fortunate – fortunate enough to know this is actually out there. After a wonderously intricate opening, the following two tracks take up the disc’s twentythree minutes with silvery guitar lines, distant drum poundings, warm vocals and chords meandering like a milky stream floating on the bed of the moon. The title track has the kind of groove you can nod your head to when lying alone in your bed at four o’clock in the morning and “Deathships of all flags gather around yr shores”’s backwards-sounds, organ sadness, accordeon-tristesse and subdued voice creaking and humming like the floorboards outside of Arthur Gordon Pyms cabin will have you touched and frightened all at once. The only thing we are concerned about is this jem’s price: Sold at seven Euros about everywhere on the planet (except for France, where you only pay five and can have a croissant and cafe au lait to go with it), this must have been manufactured by little Chinese hands! But even given that were true, we’re not really concerned: Surely, they had fun packing.

Mouvement Nouveau - tocafi (Sep. 2005)

+ On avait refermé la porte de cet excellent album qu'est Regal Daylight et c'était avec une joie certaine qu'on allait retrouver Nick le gris navigant en eau trouble vers « des mers plus ignorées » pour paraphraser Tim Powers.
Rappelons vite le concept derrière l'entité grise, pas de limite de genre puisque dans Regal Daylight l'opéra côtoyait l'electro ou le rock/pop le plus velu en matière de guitares pour un raout étonnant et passionnant. Dans cette nouvelle de série de mini-EPs, Nick prendra le large avec un unique invité, un seul instrument. Cette fois, la guitare, avec le matelot anglais Nicolas Harris.
Balades nostalgiques et un brin atones, assez expérimentales mais restant paradoxalement dans un format très classique. On peut penser à S.Chauveau à certains passages de Neubauten, ou de Nick Cave. Errance dans quelque coin reculé de la musique, entre sérénité et territoires de l'inquiétude.
Pour un prix modique de 6 euros, l'amateur éclairé s'offrira une vraie galette glissée dans un package simple, beau et à tirage limité. Ces « Eaux territoriales » comme l'était déjà « Regal Daylight » tentent de définir un nouvel espace musical sans repère ni affectation, sans gimmicks ni oripeaux. D'une beauté grave et tendue comme peut l'être une mer calme avant un typhon.

Axesscode - Kether, Sep. 2005

+ Nick Grey's CD series "Unclear Perspectives" is advertised as "a friendly soundtrack to your most outrageous meals", each volume based around one particular instrument. In the case of "Les Eaux Territoriales", the first volume, the instrument is the guitar, played by guest musician Nicholas Davis. Clearly the work of skilled and trained musicians, the compositions in "Les Eaux Territoriales" consist of a subtle, meticulous and stylish blend of electronic and acoustic instrumentation. There is some vocal work but it does not stand out, being only another element of the decorative musical tapestry that is "Les Eaux Territoriales". Somewhat eccentric, slightly touched by decadence but definitely stylish down to the hand-made package, this is a very interesting release that clearly shows that music does not have to be intense, all-encompassing and engaging. It can be 'just' another aesthetically (very) pleasant decorative piece. "Les Eaux Territoriales" fulfills this decorative role quite well: the music is pleasant, non-obtrusive but does influence the behavior of people during conversations. It would seem that there is still room for Tafelmusik and rightly so.

Connexion Bizarre - Miguel (Sep. 2005)

EMPI - EMPI (Media)

2005-09-11T14:47:00.000+02:00

Nick Grey - Regal Daylight (media)

2005-09-11T14:45:00.000+02:00

« An eccentric and highly literate fantasy » - THE WIRE

« Hier haben wir es endlich wieder einmal mit einem Album zu tun, das sich all der Oberflächlichkeit dieser Welt widersetzt! » - ORKUS (rated 8,5 out of 10)

« Classical and modern music seemed worlds apart. With the arrival of "Regal Daylight", their joint future now looks bright and beautiful. » - Mouvement Nouveau

« Every listening adds something to a vision of higher Art, where everything has its role in creating a refined but passionate fusion of poetry and music. » -- Chain DLK (rated 4 out of 5)

« Nick Grey and his orchestra have achieved an entirely new sound not heard before in rock, avant-garde electronics or neoclassical music. It is quite a stunning debut [...]. The songs are intelligent, emotional and compositionally fresh and original. » -- Heathen Harvest

« Sensible à en être touchant » -- Nova

« Schöner kann Musik überhaupt nicht sein – schön hier im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes. » -- Equinoxe Magazin

« An adventurous album » -- Funprox

« Teasing encounters, both stirring and testing. A shame the music papers are dead in this country, because they’d have been all over Nick. » -- Mick Mercer

« Beau, sombre et inclassable » -- D-Side

« Un disque hors du temps, précieux comme un souffle de vie. » -- Obsküre

« Il faut avoir un sens de la musique hors du commun et être un coordinateur de talent pour nous livrer un album comme "Regal Daylight". » -- IndiePopRock

« Questo disco e già un must ! » -- StillBorn

« Une première production exceptionnelle ! » -- Cynfeirdd

« Superbe » -- Guts Of Darkness

Playlist

2005-09-02T16:07:00.001+02:00

"His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen
Together we're gonna wait around and die"

- Townes Van Zandt, Waitin' around to die

Currently playing :

DAVE BIXBY - Ode To Quetzacoatl
PET SHOP BOYS - Concrete
WILCO - Summerteeth
QUEEN - A Day At The Races
ROD STEWART - Atlantic Crossing
ELTON JOHN - S/t
ELTON JOHN - Rock Of The Westies
ALICE COOPER - Muscle Of Love
SPAIN - The Blue Moods Of Spain
MARK LANEGAN - I'll Take Care Of You
BLUE OYSTER CULT - Fire Of Unknown Origin
DONOVAN - Sutras
THE CULT - Electric
DANIEL DARC - Crèvecoeur
OM - Pilgrimage
ELOY - Ocean
BEE GEES - Odessa
BLUE CHEER - Vincebus Eruptum
ALZO & UDINE - C'mon And Join Us
HAWKWIND - Masters Of The Universe
FIFTY FOOT HOSE - Cauldron
LED ZEPPELIN - How The West Was Won
LED ZEPPELIN - Presence
LED ZEPPELIN - In Through The Out Door
DAVID CROSBY - If I Could Only Remember My Name
EARTH - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
SEBASTIEN TELLIER - Sexuality

DANIEL DARC - Darc
PRAM - Sargasso sea
BOB DYLAN - Highway 61 revisited
BOB DYLAN - Blood on the tracks
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - S/t
INADE - Aldebaran
TANGERINE DREAM - Electronic meditation
MCLUSKY - My pain and sadness is more sad and painful than yours
MEAT LOAF - Hits out of hell
JD BLACKFOOT - The ultimate prophecy
LOU REED - Ecstasy
LOU REED - The blue mask
GRAM PARSONS - GP
JOHN PRINE - S/t (damn !!!)
CHAVEZ - Better days will haunt you

BARBARA - Voyageuse longbox
SIMON FINN - Silent city creep
BUFFY SAINTE MARIE - Illuminations
BILL FAY - Time of the last persecution
BERT JANSCH - Jack Orion
NEIL YOUNG - Trans
SIMON FINN - Magic moments
SIMON FINN - Accidental life
IGGY POP - Party

JIM STEINMAN - Bad for good
GRAM PARSONS - GP
GARBAGE - Version 2.0
DENNIS WILSON - Pacific ocean blue
KING CRIMSON - Red
DURUTTI COLUMN - Bread and circuses
KISS - Dynasty
FRIDA HYVONEN - Until death comes
ROBERT WYATT - Comicopera
FRANK SINATRA - Where are you
TOM WAITS - Big time
SEBADOH - III
DUNCAN BROWNE - Give me take you
WILLIAM SHATNER - The transformed man
DAVID ACKLES - American gothic

BOB DYLAN - Blood on the tracks
ROBERT WYATT - Comicopera
PJ HARVEY - White chalk
KISS - Love gun
BURZUM - Daudi baldrs
SUNN O))) - Oracle
SEEFEEL - Quique
SAND - The Dalston shroud
SMOG - Dongs of sevotion
MELVINS - Hostile ambient takeover
LABRADFORD - Prazision
NADJA - Touched
LEO FERRE - Les loubards

LEO FERRE - Chante les poètes boxset
THIGHPAULSANDRA - Double vulgar II
CURRENT 93 & NURSE WITH WOUND - Bright yellow moon
TROUM & MARTYN BATES - To a child dancing in the wind
MICK RONSON - Slaughter on 10th avenue
DAVID BOWIE - Low
THROBBING GRISTLE - Part two : The endless not
SWANS - White light from the mouth of infinity
SWANS - Soundtracks for the blind
WALDTEUFEL - Sanguis
VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA - Copse

COMUS - First utterance
AXOLOTL - Memory theatre
ANGELS OF LIGHT - We are him
EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN - 1/2 Mensch
WHITEHOUSE - Racket
PLANTS - Double infinity
ENDVRA - Black Eden
EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN - Zeichnungen des pazienten OT
EINSTURZENDE NAUBAUTEN - Der Tod ist ein Dandy
PRINCIPAL EDWARDS MAGIC THEATRE - The Asmoto running band
GARY NUMAN - The pleasure principle
GRAM PARSONS - GP
BOB DYLAN - Time out of mind
INADE - Aldebaran
ANATHEMA - The silent enigma

KINSKI - Down below it's chaos
MORTIIS - Crypt of the wizard
PIANO MAGIC - Part monster
MORPHINE - Cure for pain
INTERPOL - Our love to admire
SHINJUKU THIEF - Witch hunter
BILL FAY - Time of the last persecution
DIABOLOGUM - #3
ARTHUR LYMAN - Exotic sounds of...
PASCAL COMELADE - L'argot du bruit
JOHN LENNON - Plastic Ono Band
LABRADFORD - Prazision
UNSANE - Visqueen
SMASHING PUMPKINS - Zeitgeist
BURZUM - Hlidskjalf
VA - The Shining OST
WHITE NOISE - An electric storm
DEATH IN VEGAS - Scorpio rising
OF MONTREAL - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE - Black earth
KING CRIMSON - Discipline
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - Let love in

ELTON JOHN - Caribou
ELTON JOHN - Captain Fantastic & the brown dirt cowboy
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Texas troubadour boxset
THE DOORS - The soft parade
DEL SHANNON - Home & away
DEL SHANNON - Drop down & get me
THE BEACH BOYS - Smiley smile
JACKSON C. FRANK - Blues run the game
LEO FERRE - Les vieux copains
TOM WAITS - The black rider
THE DOORS - LA Woman
FRANK SINATRA - Point of no return
FRANK SINATRA - In the wee small hours
FRANK SINATRA - Sings for only the lonely
ROXY MUSIC - Stranded
SONIC YOUTH - Sister
THE STOOGES - Fun house
ELTON JOHN - Don't shoot me...
THE DOORS - Strange days
THE DOORS - S/t
BRIAN WILSON - Smile
AMY WINEHOUSE - Back to black
POLNAREFF - Les premiËres annÈes boxset
BRIAN WILSON - Brian Wilson

THE GRATEFUL DEAD - Live dead
DAVID BOWIE - Stage
DIRTY THREE - S/t
BLONDIE - Parralel lines
JESUS LIZARD - Head / Pure
ELTON JOHN - Goodbye yellow brick road
ELTON JOHN - Madman across the water
LEONARD COHEN - Various positions
JOHN ZORN - Moonchild
NEUROSIS - Given to the rising
MEAT LOAF - Bat out of hell II
MATMOS - A chance to cut is a chance to cure
DAVID BOWIE - David Live

CURRENT 93 - Sleep has his house
CURRENT 93 - Halo
MARVIN GAYE - What's going on
OTIS REDDING - Pain in my heart
MORRISSEY - Viva hate
KTL - S/t
CURRENT 93 - The inmost light (boxset)
PERE UBU - The tenement year
ALAN VEGA - Station
EARTH - Hibernaculum
ELECTRELANE - The power out
DOME - 1&2

KIM FOWLEY JR - Son of Frankenstein
MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA
- Leave the city
ROBBIE BASHO - The Falconer's arm
SUN CITY GIRLS - 1st
LICHENS - The psychic nature of being
CRAWLING CHAOS - The gas chair
MAGMA - Kohntarkösz

BURIAL - S/t
FUNCTION - The secret miracle fountain
LOW - Secret name
LOW - Trust
NEUROSIS - Enemy of the sun
LOW - Paris '99
HOLE - Live through this
ARHTUR LYMAN - Taboo & Quiet village
TORTOISE - A Lazarus taxon
LOW - A lifetime of temporary relief
EXCEPTER - Alternation
CONVERGE - Y2K
ZOMBI - Surface to air
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE - Univers zen ou de zero à zero
WILCO - Sky blue sky
EARLIES - The enemy chorus
GRAUZONE - Die Sunrise tapes
TERRY RILEY - A rainbow in curved air
TANGERINE DREAM - Phaedra
RHYS CHATHAM - A Crimson Grail
SAND - Golem
SOM IMAGINARIO - S/t
TORTOISE - Millions now living will never die
THE PONYS - Turn the lights out
TRASHMONK - Mona Lisa overdrive
MICHEL MAGNE - Mélodie en sous-sol / Un singe en hiver OST
POLNAREFF - La folie des grandeurs OST
WILCO - A ghost is born
DINOSAUR JR - Beyond
DURUTTI COLUMN - The return of
VON SÜDENFED - Tromatic reflexxions

ALAN VEGA - Station
TWO LONE SWORDSMEN - Tiny reminders
ORBITAL - In sides
JOHN LEYTON - The anthology
BJORK - Medulla
MATMOS - A chance to cut is a chance to cure
SLINT - Spiderland
BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE - Sunset mission
MESSIAEN - Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité
AMON TOBIN - Supermodified
BJORK - Volta
BJORK - Debut
BJORK - Vespertine
BJORK - Post
AMON TOBIN - The Foley room
CSS - Cansei de ser sexy
HENRYK GORECKI / KRONOS QUARTET - ...Songs are sung
FAUST - IV
JOHNNY CASH - American III
KISS - 1st
OST - The Godfather
KEITH JARRETT - Spheres
ELECTRELANE - No shouts no calls

ELECTRELANE - No shouts, no calls
BURZUM - Filosofem
LOW - Things we lost in the fire
KLAUS NOMI - Simple man
UNIVERS ZERO - Hérésie
DEATH - Symbolic
BIG BLACK - Songs about fucking
CRAWLING CHAOS - The gas chair
SAND - Golem
SWELL - 41
LOW - Songs for a dead pilot
LOU REED - Hudson river wind meditations
LES VISITEURS DU SOIR - Je t'écris d'un pays
OLIVENSTEINS - Fier de ne rien faire
JOHN LENNON - Plastic Ono Band
OF MONTREAL - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
ARTHUR LYMAN - Taboo
MICHAEL CASHMORE - The snow abides
JOHN CALE - Music for a new society
KISS - Music from The Elder

JOHN LENNON - Plastic Ono Band

MAGAZINE - Secondhand Daylight
THE LATE CORD - Lights from the wheelhouse (esp. "my most meaningful relationships..." which i've probably played at least forty-nine times this morning)
TORTOISE - It's all around you
SUNN O))) + BORIS - Altar
ALICE COLTRANE - World galaxy
CROMAGNON - Orgasm
RODD KEITH - Ecstasy to frenzy
LOW + DIRTY THREE - In the fishtank
SISTERS OF MERCY - Floodland
JIMMY WEBB - El Mirage
DEATH - Spiritual healing
JOHN FOXX - Cathedral oceans
MOGWAI - Zidane / Hidden track only, please
ELECTRELANE - Axes
BURZUM - Hviss etc
DEATH - Spiritual healing

POPOL VUH - Sei still, wisse ich bin
PETER GABRIEL - Birdy
LABRADFORD - S/t
MORODER - Einzelgänger
ROWLAND S. HOWARD - Teenage snuff film
SHELLAC - At action park
THE RESIDENTS - Fingerprince
WEDDING PRESENT - Seamonsters
JESSE SYKES - Like love lust...
ARBOURETUM - long live the well-doer
THE FALL - Perverted by language
SHELLAC - 1000 hurts
BERT JANSCH - S/t
LAU NAU - Kuutarha
NICK CAVE - Your funeral, my trial
LOW - Drums & guns
SPARKLEHORSE - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
GOLDFRAPP - Black cherry
JULIE TIPPETTS - Sunset glow
THE FALL - Peel sessions 1978 - 2004 boxset
WILLIAM BURROUGHS - Dead city radio
LABRADFORD - A stable reference
PAVEMENT - Wowee zowee
LOW - I could live in hope
NICK CAVE & BAD SEEDS - Tender prey
SUNN O))) & BORIS - Altar

LOW - I could live in hope
BOB DYLAN - Bringing it all back home
LEO FERRE - Maudits soient-ils
NINA SIMONE - To love somebody
POLNAREFF - Le bal des Laze

BOB DYLAN - Blood on the tracks
NINA SIMONE - Wild is the wind

ERIC DOLPHY - Out to lunch
GRINDERMAN - S/t
SERGE GAINSBOURG - Love on the beat
JEAN CLAUDE VANNIER - L'enfant assassin des mouches
SERGE GAINSBOURG - L'homme à la tête de chou
ELECTRELANE - Axes
LOW - I could live in hope
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Flyin' shoes
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Delta Momma blues
AMON DUUL II - Wolf city
BIG BLACK - Songs about fucking
KRISTIN HERSCH - Learn to sing like a star
THROWING MUSES - The real Ramona
KLAUS SCHULZE - X
FRANCOIS DE ROUBAIX - Le monde électronique vol. II
LOW - The curtain hits the cast
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - S/t
ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA - Eldorado
ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA - No answer
GENESIS - Wind & wuthering
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL - On Avery island
KING CRIMSON - Beat
SERGE GAINSBOURG - Rock around the bunker
NICO - Wüstenklänge im Planetarium

DOME - 3
DEATH - The sound of perseverance
FLYING SAUCER ATTACK - S/t
THE BAND - Music from Big Pink
PIL - Flowers of romance
LOW - I could live in hope
HARMONIA - DeLuxe
JOHNNY CASH - Bitter tears
FEAR - The record
FOETUS INTERRUPTUS - Thaw
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL - In the aeroplane over the sea
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Texas troubadour boxset

CHRISTOPHE - Bevilacqua
JULIE TIPPETTS - Sunset glow
DOME - 4
MORODER - Einzelganger (Good Old Germany !!!)
THE NOTWIST - Shrink
LOW - The curtain hits the cast
KLAUS SCHULZE - X
ROD STEWART - Blondes have more fun
MICHAEL MANTLER / EDWARD GOREY - The hapless child
FLINT GLASS - Nyarlathothep
KING CRIMSON - Starless & Bible black
THE HAFLER TRIO - Being a firefighter isn't just about squirting water

THE RAINCOATS - Odyshape
CHRIS BELL - I am the cosmos
VA - BIPPP French synth wave 1979-85
JOSEPHINE FOSTER - A wolf in sheep's clothing
JOHN FOXX - Metamatic
THE FOR CARNATION - S/t
THE TREES COMMUNITY - The Christ Tree
LEE HAZLEWOOD - Requiem for an almost lady
NEIL YOUNG - Arc
ARCHIE SHEPP - Blasé
JOHN COLTRANE & DON CHERRY - The avant garde
GENE CLARK - No other

BILL FAY - 1st
LOW - Christmas
LOW - Live at ATP 2002
SIMON FINN - Pass the distance
MOGWAI - My father my king

LOW - Trust

LOW - I could live in hope
PHARAOAH SANDERS - Karma
CAST KING - Saw mill man
TUXEDOMOON - Desire
KATO HIDEKI, IKUE MORI & FRED FRITH - Death ambient
DAVIE ALLAN & THE ARROWS - Devil's rumble

MOONDOG - S/t
KING CRIMSON - Lizard
KING CRIMSON - Islands
KING CRIMSON - In the wake of Poseidon
THE FOR CARNATION - S/t
KRISTIN HERSCH - The grotto
GHOST - In stormy nights
SNOG - Buy me... I'll change your life

SPAIN - The blue moods of Spain
YO LA TENGO - And then nothing turned itself inside-out
VA - The In-Kraut vol. 1
SMOG - 'Neath the puke tree
KING CRIMSON - Beat
TALKING HEADS - Fear of music

THE WOLFGANG PRESS - Birdwoodcage
JOHNNY CASH - Bitter tears
KLAUS NOMI - S/t
TIMESBOLD - S/t
SPOONFED HYBRID - S/t
BRONSKI BEAT - Age of consent
THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT - A beard of bees
WENDY CARLOS - Tales of heaven and hell
ARMANDE ALTAÏ - Remembo
FRANCOIS DE ROUBAIX - Le monde électronique de FDR
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - The sun awakens
DEL SHANNON - The definitive collection

JAMIE SAFT TRIO - Trouble
BRUCE HAACK - Electric Lucifer
ALICE COLTRANE - Translinear light
ESPERS - 2
ISOBEL CAMPBELL - Milkwhite sheets
GONG - Camembert électrique

ALICE COLTRANE - World galaxy
JOHN ZACHERLEY - Spook along with Zacherley
AMON TOBIN - Chaos theory
ARZACHEL - S/t
ASH RA TEMPEL - Seven up
ASH RA TEMPEL - Schwingungen
JOHN MARTYN - Solid air
ANNEXUS QUAM - Beziehungen

RODD KEITH - Ecstasy to frenzy
BRIDGET ST JOHN - Ask me no questions
PHILIPPE SARDE & JEAN-ROGER CAUSSIMON - Le juge et l'assassin ost
THE LEGENDARY STARDUST COWBOY - Live in Chicago
THE SPACE LADY - Street-level superstar

801 - Live
THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT - A beard of bees
VA - American song poem anthology
KLAUS NOMI - Live at Hurrah's 1979
THE EGG - The polite force
WOLFMANGLER - Dwelling in a dead raven for the glory of crucified wolves

MOONDOG - S/t
PRINCIPAL EDWARDS MAGIC THEATRE - The Asmoto running band
THE SHAGGS - Philosophy of the world
THE NOTWIST - Shrink
CLAIR OBSCUR - In/out

WIRE - 154
JOE MEEK - The alchemist of pop
KING CRIMSON - Islands
KING CRIMSON - Lizard
BILL HOLT - Dreamies
PETER GABRIEL - 4
YES - Fragile
JANE SIBERRY - Maria
BJ SNOWDEN - In memory of my father & my life in Canada's Atlantic provinces
TANGERINE DREAM - Stratosfear
MIKE OLDFIELD - Hergest ridge
SUNN 0))) & BORIS - Altar
ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM ORCHESTRA - The Rolling Stones Songbook
DEL SHANNON - Home & away
PETER HAMMILL - Chameleon in the shadow of night
THE PENTANGLE - Basket of light
CA QUINTET - Trip thru hell
JETHRO TULL - Heavy horses
BARRACUDAS - Drop out

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - Dark noontide
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - School of the flower
CANDI STATON - S/t
THOMAS BLOCH - Music for glass harmonica
ROBERT WYATT - End of an ear
MOTORHEAD - Overkill
MAYO THOMPSON - Corky's debt to his father
ALEXANDER SKIP SPENCE - Oar

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA - A new world record
BLONDIE - Parallel lines
THE LANGLEY SCHOOL'S MUSIC PROJECT - S/t
PETER GABRIEL - Car / 1
THE BLUE NILE - A walk across the rooftops
ELVIS COSTELLO - This year's model
THE UNDERTONES - S/t
DEL SHANNON - Home & away
CORNELIUS - Fantasma
V/A - The complete Stax - Volt soul singles vol.1 (1959-68)
V/A - Songs in the key of Z

SOFT CELL - Non stop ecstatic dancing

KLAUS NOMI - S/t
JOHN FOXX - Metamatic
BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL - Lucifer rising
TALKING HEADS - :77
ULTRAVOX - Ha ha ha
IAN HUNTER - You're never alone

STEVE REICH - Phases boxset
RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON - I want to see the bright lights tonight
DAVID AXELROD - Earth rot
DOROTHY ASHBY - Afro harping
GLENN BRANCA - Symphony n 2
MUSIC EMPORIUM - S/t
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - Collected A & B sides
NEU! - 1st
MELVINS - The bootlicker
ESG - A south Bronx story
DOME - Vols. 1 & 2

ANJA GARBAREK - Smiling & waving
JACK NITZSCHE - St Giles Cripplegate
WIM MERTENS - A man of no fortune
COUSTEAU - Wish you were her
OM - Conference of the birds
THE FUGS - The Fugs first album
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR - Pawn hearts
GAE BOLG - Requiem
FUNKADELIC - Maggot brain

FRANK SINATRA & ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM - S/t
CHARLIE HADEN - Quartet West
FRANK SINATRA - Point of no return
THE TIGER LILLIES - Punch & Judy
SOFT CELL - The art of falling apart
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY & MATT SWEENEY - Superwolf
SLEEP - Jerusalem
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR - The least we can do is wave to each other
SWANS - Swans are dead
SWANS - Cop

PARLIAMENT - Mothership connection
GRAM PARSONS - GP
THE BYRDS - Mr Tambourine man
MATT ELLIOTT - Failing songs
DURUFLE - Requiem op.9
WOLFMANGLER - Dwelling in a dead raven for the glory of crucified wolves
GLENN BRANCA - Symphony n°2 : The peak of the sacred
SOPHIA - Collections : one
SOPHIA - Technology won't save us
PET SHOP BOYS - Behavior
THIS HEAT - S/t
VENOM - Black metal

CAROLE KING - Tapestry
CAN - Tago mago
CAN - Ege bamyasi
KAREN DALTON - In my own time

STEFANO LANDI - L'Arpeggiata
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Born to run
BAUHAUS - In the flat field
MANSET - Matrice
THE BYRDS - Fifth dimension
HENRY COW - In praise of learning
JAMES REID - Like a buzzard chased by crows
230 DIVISADERO - A vision of lost unity
BRIAN ENO - Discreet music
PIL - Metal box
JOHN CALE - Vintage violence
AGITATED RADIO PILOT - A premonition

KEVIN COYNE - Case history
LOW - Trust
CAT POWER - The greatest
TIGER LILLIES - The brothel to the cemetary
PLINTH - Plinth plays Victorian machine music
UNITED BIBLE STUDIES - The Northern lights and the Northern Dark
AGITATED RADIO PILOT - Your turn to go it alone
COMETS ON FIRE - Avatar
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - Dusty in Memphis

BODUF SONGS - S/t
JESSICA BAILIFF - Feels like home
JESSE SYKES - Oh my girl
THIRD EYE FOUNDATION - You guys kill me
KEVIN AYERS - whatevershebringswesing
NADJA - Truth becomes death
HENRY FLYNT - Hillbilly tape music
METALLIC FALCONS - Desert doughnuts
BORIS - Absolutego

LABRADFORD - Prazision
HOLY GHOST RECEPTION COMMITTEE #9 - Songs for liturgical worship
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Born to run
MUSIC EMPORIUM - S/t
DURUTTI COLUMN - Circuses & bread
SERGIUS GOLOWIN - Lord Krishna von Goloka
RAYMOND SCOTT - Soothing sounds for baby
MICHEL REDOLFI - Mare Teno
JOHN JACOB NILES - I wonder as I wander
COMETS ON FIRE - Avatar
THE PRETTY THINGS - Emotions

MOLASSES - You'll never be well no more
THE THIRD EYE FOUNDATION - Collected works
THIS HEAT - S/t
CLARA ROCKMORE - Art of the theremin
TALK TALK - The laughing stock
STRAWBS - Bursting at the seams
DEATH - The sound of perseverance

JOSEPHINE FOSTER - A wolf in sheep's clothing
SUNN O))) & BORIS - Altar
SKIP JAMES - Devil got my woman
YO LA TENGO - I am not afraid of you and I will kick your ass
TEENAGE FANCLUB - Songs from Northern Britain
MEAT PUPPETS - S/t
LEMONHEADS - Hate your friends
DEATHPROD - Morals & dogma
THE CARS - S/t

THE BLITHE SONS - We walk the young earth
ESPERS - S/t
SOPHIA - Technology won't save us
ENABLERS - Output negative space
YO LA TENGO - Today is the day
CLAIR OBSCUR - In out
TIMESBOLD - S/t
EAST RIVER PIPE - Garbageheads on endless stun
BALANESCU QUARTET - Maria T

MELVINS - Bullhead
MELVINS - Bootlicker
NADJA - Truth becomes death
NADJA - Body cage
ELECTRIC WIZARD - Dopethrone
GAVIN BRYARS - After the requiem
TIGER LILLIES & KRONOS QUARTET - The Gorey end

MANSET - Matrice
THE BATS - Fear of God
JEAN MICHEL JARRE - Equinoxe

STEVEN R SMITH - The death of last year's man EP
GREG WEEKS - Awake like sleep
THE BREEDERS - Title TK
MATT SWEENEY & BONNIE PRINCE BILLY - Superwolf
DONOVAN - Hurdy gurdy man
OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL - Black foliage
SWELL - For all the beautiful people

MARK HOLLIS - S/t
LISA GERMANO - Geek the girl
RESIDENTS - Meet the residents
DEATHPROD - Morals & dogma
TIGER LILLIES - The sea
MY BLOODY VALENTINE - Isn't anything
HATFIELD & THE NORTH - S/t
LURKER OF CHALICE - S/t
PHARAOH SANDERS - Elevation

T REX - Tanx
PARLIAMENT - Mothership connection
TIGER LILLIES - Farmyard filth
ANDREW LILES - Tubercular bells
MOSS - Cthonic rites
RAISON D'ETRE - Requiem for abandoned souls
XIU XIU & GROUPER - Creepshow
CARLA BLEY - Mortelle randonnée OST
DONOVAN - Mellow yellow
KHANATE - Capture & release
SWANS - World of skin

TEX LA HOMA - Apport EP
DANIEL MENCHE - Eye on the steel
BURZUM - Filosofem
BREATHE STONE - Hex thistle
SPOONFED HYBRID - Hibernation shock EP
SCOTT WALKER - The drift
OMD - Dazzle ships
BASHUNG - Play blessures
COUPERIN - Leçons de ténèbres
FUNKADELIC - Maggot brain

JOE MEEK - I hear a new world
MORRISSEY - Ringleader of the tormentors
JOANNA NEWSOM - Ys
KRISTIN HERSCH - Your ghost EP
MAD RIVER - Paradise bar and grill
PETER GABRIEL - Security

POPOL VUH - Hosianna mantra
PETER HAMMILL - In camera
THIS HEAT - S/t
NINO ROTA - La strada
NAKED CITY - Absinthe
BEIRUT - Gulag orkestar
ALICE COLTRANE - World galaxy
ARTHUR BROWN - The crazy world of...

ROY ORBISON - Crying
ROY ORBISON - In Dreams
ROY ORBISON - Sings lonely and blue

GENESIS - Foxtrot
ENNIO MORRICONE - Mission to Mars OST
THE BEACH BOYS - Surf's up
NINA SIMONE - Wild is the wind
SERGIUS GOLOWIN - Lord Krishna von Goloka
THE STRAWBS - From the Witchwood

TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones
TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones
TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones
TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones
TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones
TIGER LILLIES - Hailstones

FUNKADELIC - Maggot brain
OMD - Dazzle ships
JETHRO TULL - Aqualung
EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN - Haus der lüge
PIL - Flowers of romance

TOWNES VAN ZANDT - S/t
GAVIN BRYARS - Jesus' blood never failed me
MOODY BLUES - Every good boy deserves favor
GENESIS - Selling England by the pound

VED BUENS ENDE - Written in waters
LOTHAR & THE HAND PEOPLE - Space hymn
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR - Pawn hearts
LISA GERMANO - Lullaby for the liquid pig
LEE PERRY & THE UPSETTERS - Super ape
BOREDOMS - Super ae
TYPE O NEGATIVE - Bloody kisses
PETER HAMMILL - Over
JULIAN COPE - Jehovahkill

YMA SUMAC - The mambo
SLAYER - Seasons in the abyss
PRINCE - Batman OST
PET SHOP BOYS - Behavior
BORIS - Absolutego
ZOMBI - Surface to air
MORPHINE - Bootleg Detroit

STEVE REICH - Drumming
DEATHPROD - Morals & dogma
SCOTT WALKER - Tilt
HUSKER DU - Zen arcade
TYPE O NEGATIVE - World coming down
FRED FRITH - Eye to ear II
KISS - Peter Criss

WOLFMANGLER - The gates of wolves
TERRY RILEY - In C
LORD KRISHNA VON GOLOKA - Cosmic jokers & Sergius Golowin

MATCHING MOLE - Little red record
HUUN-HUUR-TU - 60 horses in my herd
PALE SAINTS - Flesh balloon
JOBRIATH - Lonely planet boy
COLIN BLUNSTONE - One year
DOMINIQUE A - La fossette
FRIPP & ENO - No pussyfooting
DE LA SOUL - ...Is dead

FLIPPER - Gone fishin'
GILA - S/T

POPOL VUH - Hosianna mantra
PIERRE HENRY - Le voyage
PETER HAMMILL - Over
LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE - Earth spirit & sky

BOB DYLAN - Hard rain

STEVE RODEN & TU M' - Broken distant fragrant

NICO - Chelsea girl
TOWNES VAN ZANDT - Delta momma blues
THE WHITE NOISE - An electric storm
MEAT LOAF - Bat out of hell
MATCHING MOLE - Little red record
TEX LA HOMA - Into timeless shadows
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE Ost

MARILLION - Childhood's end

JOHN COLTRANE - Stellar regions
ROBERT WYATT - Old rottenhat
PETER HAMMILL - In camera
IRON MAIDEN - Somewhere in time
SCOTT WALKER - Scott 3
BLACK SABBATH - Behind the wall of Spock
ANGE - Vu d'un chien

TEETH OF LIONS RULE THE DIVINE - Rampton
NEIL YOUNG - American stars n bars
CAT POWER - The greatest

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE - Sleeps with Angels
EARTH - Pentastar, in the style of demons
ULVER - Blood Inside
BURZUM - Burzum / Aske
GUN CLUB - Early warning
JANDEK - Put my dream on this planet
THE DAVID - Another day, another lifetime
TORTOISE - A Lazarus Taxon

GRAM PARSONS - GP
GRAM PARSONS - Grievous Angel

HOLY MCGRAIL - Collecting earthquakes
DASHIELL HEDAYAT - Obsolète
OM - Conference of the birds
KING CRIMSON - Thrak
GRANT LEE PHILLIPS - Nineteeneighties
48 CAMERAS - Green Water EP
COIL - Black Antlers
CITAY - S/t
MONKS - Black monk time
ZOMBI - Surface to air
NIKKI SUDDEN - Texas

BLACK OX ORKESTAR - Nisht Azoy
EXCEPTER - Alternation
PET SHOP BOYS - Fundamental
JOHN COLTRANE - Stellar regions
XXL - Ciaotistico
PHILL NIBLOCK - Touch three
KHANATE - Capture & release
SCOTT WALKER - The drift
MYSTIC FUGU ORCHESTRA - Zohar

SLOMO - The creep
CHRIS BOZZONE - Horizons of death
JUDAS PRIEST - Painkiller
BRIAN ENO + DAVID BYRNE - My life in the bush of ghosts
ALICE COOPER - Flush the fashion
PRINCE - Dirty Mind
SPARKS - 1st
KING MISSILE - The psychopathology of everyday
ALBERT AYLER - Free form jazzKISS - 1st

EDEN AHBEZ - Eden's island
IRON MAIDEN - Powerslave
230 DIVISADERO - A vision of lost unity ep
MELVINS - 1st
HIGH LLAMAS - Hawaii
EARTH - Earth 2
SPARKS - Kimono my house

NIKKI SUDDEN - Dead men tell no tales

MANSET - Animal on est mal
MANSET - La mort d'Orion
TEX LA HOMA - Dazzle me with transience
MANSET - Obok
LARSEN - PLAY
°CATLANDGREY° - S/T
MANSET - Il voyage en solitaire

SPARKS - Kimono my house
SPARKS - Hello young lovers

MATT ELLIOTT - Drinking songs
MATT ELLIOTT - The mess we made
THE HONEYMOON MUSIC COMPILATION
TANAKH - Dieu Deuil
NADJA - Body Cage
CINDYTALK - Camouflage heart
TORTOISE & BONNIE PRINCE BILLY - The brave & the bold
NIAGARA FALLS - Barrel vault
SLEEP - Holy mountain
GRAVENHURST - Black holes in the sand

FURSAXA - Lepidoptera / Madrigal in duos
C.A. QUINTET - Trip thru hell
AMBER ASYLUM - Frozen in amber
STRAWBS - Grave new world
INSECT TRUST - S/t
HUSKER DU - Zen arcade
LOTUS EATERS - Mind control for infants
OREN AMBARCHI - Triste
TIMOTHY, REVELATOR - Lost gospel music vol.1
THIS HEAT - Deceit
XIU XIU - La forêt
LOGH - The raging sun

VASHTI BUNYAN - Lookaftering
AMBER ASYLUM - Songs of sex & death
48 CAMERAS - After all, isn't tango the dance of the drunk man ?
SILVER APPLES - Contact
SUNN O))) - Black 1
JEFFREY RODEN - Seeds of happiness pt. 1
ROBERT WYATT & FRIENDS - Drury Lane 1974
EARTH - Hex..
JANDEK - Shadow of leaves
SMOG - Burning kingdom
TROY VON BALTHAZAR - 1st
MARK HOLLIS - S/t

Coming Soon

2005-08-13T00:51:00.001+02:00

Upcoming releases :

- Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - Spin Vows Under Arch
Out mid June on Beta Lactam Ring Records

- Bozzone & Grey - S/T

- 230 Divisadero - The Silent Watcher EP

Also :

/ 230 Divisadero - The Breather Key EP

Out soon on Apollolaan

Do you ever think about death all the time ? And feel how welcome death would be ? Do you think to yourself, 'I'm worthless' ? Have you ever been so confused that violence is your cure ? Discontrol, laughing, crying, lose control, despair. Forgive me. One person copes, the other goes mad. Extra medication, there is another world.

(stop me from feeling - I need change - my life needs to change)

Extra medication : the veil is lifting.

Tracklisting :

01 - Palimpsest. 02 - I Have Long Meditated Upon The Rise And Fall Of The Great Death. 03 - Palindrome.

/
FAR GREY FURLONG
by Far Black Furlong and Nick Grey

Far Black Furlong founder members include Richard Moult (exceptional multifaceted artist, painter and musician; collaborator of David Michael Tibet and composer of the beautifully received album The Secret Joy, available from Cynfeirdd), Mark Baigent (conductor of the Dream English ensemble for Current 93's forthcoming Whilst The Night..., a renowned Baroque/Classical oboist who also plays live in Richard Moult's classical song ensemble), Andy Cotterill (an electronics genius) and Ian Tengwall (of the group Small Blue Fish who recorded the Whilst the Night sessions). Guests of the ensemble have included Amanda Votta (of The Floating World), Anne Marie Summers (of Misericordia) and dulcimer player John Letcher, who made the replica Sumerian harp which was featured on Live Aid Africa.

Biography / Discography

2005-08-13T00:32:00.002+02:00

I. Biography

"Beneath the body I notice façades, undreaming even of fields."

- Random spam email

Nicolai Riccardo Moldoveanu Grey lives in Monaco and Montréal, Canada and has been releasing depressing music since 2002. His main musical entity, Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra (contributors including Martyn Bates, Charlemagne Palestine, Jessica Constable, Far Black Furlong etc.) has often been entertainingly depicted as "snorecore", "absence music", "ideal for sessions of late-night estrangement" or "typical bongwater mouthwash gargles".

He is a current member of the projects 230 Divisadero, 48 Cameras, Bozzone & Grey and Grey Force Wakeford.

His favorite word is conceal.

II. Discography

( purchase these releases HERE - more info below)

Albums :

2008. Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - Spin Vows Under Arch (Album, Beta Lactam Ring Records)

2008. Grey Force Wakeford - S/t (Album, Athanor)

2007. 230 Divisadero - S/t (Album, Locust Music)

2006. Nick Grey - Thieves Among Thorns (Album, Hand / Eye)

2005. Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - Regal Daylight (Album, Stateart)

2002. EMPI - EMPI (Album, Brume Records)

EPs :

2007. Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - The Candlelight Eyes EP (EP, Barl Fire)

2007. Empusae & Nick Grey - Simple Black Lines In A Diagram (3" cd, Brume Records)

2006. 230 Divisadero - A Vision of Lost Unity (EP, Milk & moon recordings)

2006. °catlandgrey° - S/t (EP, Milk & moon recordings)

2006. Nick Grey - Les Eaux Territoriales (EP, Milk & moon recordings)

Compilation tracks :

2007. Nick Grey "Black Paper, Mountain" - RUFS (CD, Fenetre Records)

2006. 230 Divisadero "Storm In December" - Silber Sounds Of Christmas (CDr, Silber Media)

2005. EMPI vs Darkly Pale "Wishlist" - AxC_Labs (CD, Axesscode)

+ + +

More info :

/
NICK GREY & THE RANDOM ORCHESTRA
Spin Vows Under Arch
Beta Lactam Ring Records
CD
out soon

First ed. of 500 numbered copies in a full color book bound CD case and full color booklet available mid June 2008. The opening growl is so like a stomache churn that an immediate restart was needed to ensure that the noise was not physiological. And thus unfolds the bizarre tonal kerchief of Nick Grey. A great host of talent was enlisted to complete this project including: Charlemagne Palestine, Martyn Bates, Jean Marie Mathoul, Jessica Constable, Kris Force, Matt Shaw, Richard Moult et al. Fortunately, Nick sidesteps the pitfalls of a multi-vocalist endeavor by sewing the various excursions together to form a united whole. The low spark of fuzzed guitars, married with ecumenical drones, navigates haloed ports, each guarded by its own siren song. Beautiful, subdued vocal performances (some spoken) add colour to the clouds, as do the well drawn-out spaces in between the voices. This method of carving space has a relative in Cindytalk, vis a vis the patient accumulation of sound traveling like a carefully paced brooding force; un-tethered and given emotional exclamation at cardinal points throughout the album. By the mid section when Martyn Bates’ soulful charms are brought to the breach, Spin Vows' quiet momentum is unstoppable and seeps in like rain water to hungry soil. There is also a playful Derek Jarman-ness when the recordings intentionally seem a little raw (and with the slight tug at the curtain offered by some well placed drops of studio banter). Sometimes voices really DO carry.

/
GREY FORCE WAKEFORD
Marble Heart
Athanor
CD
April 2008

Athanor is proud to present the debut release of Grey Force Wakeford, a collaborative project between the three kult post-industrial figures that are Kris Force, Nick Grey and Tony Wakeford. Listeners familiar with their indivual and collective works (Sol Invictus, Amber Asylum, 230 Divisadero...) can expect deterritoralized choruses and inter-exchanged song-writing moments arranged in a delightfully sensual threeway musical collaboration. Faux-spiritual drone-folk from Nick Grey enters into a very stark contrast with more serious, moody edges from neo-folk pioneer Tony Wakeford, while moments of intense communion between Kris Force and Grey come off as a relief of earth-crying gloom and experimental processes and methods recalling Philip Glass' most divine moments, meeting old school industrial angst à la Throbbing Gristle with a twist of sublime, early Brian Eno. Force and Grey craft a general climate of neo-classical acoustic technique and chamber music arrangements, meeting up with Wakeford's ownset of aesthetics and conjuring a heart-warming, post-jazzy, epic fusion of the senses. Various clarinets, live vibraphone, antique old piano, creeping blues-garage guitar, voices in chorus, masterfully haunting strings and vocal solos all rejoice in a whole new genre of extremely humble post-industrial musical theatre, replete with up-to-date electronic processing techniques.. The CD is presented as a 6 pages digifiles based on a fantastic original artwork by David V. D'Andrea who is amongst others famous for his posters and covers created for Ulver, Queens of the Stone Age, Witchcraft, OM, while the digifile design was made by famous graphic designer John Heiden for Smog Design in Los Angeles who does works for Pink, Suzanne Vega, A-Ha, Van Halen or Christina Aguilera amongst others.

/
230 DIVISADERO
230 Divisadero
locust97
CD
2007-09-18

The transcontinental duo 230 Divisadero make stately, finely crafted atmospheric songs that stand outside the bounds of contemporary musical trends. Their self released langorous drone ep has drawn comparisons to SunnO))) and Nurse With Wound. On their self titled full length debut, the duo of Britain's Matt Shaw (Tex la Homa) and Monaco's Nick Grey have honed in the wide audio brush strokes of their ep and have produced one of the finest blends of Brian Eno inspired art song we've heard in years. 230 Divisadero is simultaneously refreshing and reminiscent of classic acts like Talk Talk & New Zealand's sterling & sadly under recognized act This Kind of Punishment.

/
EMPUSAE + NICK GREY - Simple black lines in a diagram 3" cd

Label: Brume Records
Release date: June 2007

“Simple Black Lines in a Diagram” is the seamless encounter of the talent and creative worlds of both artists involved : Empusae’s captivating tribal rhythms and singular ambiances provide a perfect complement to Nick Grey’s expertise at crafting and interpreting melancholic songs of exquisite elegance.

The result is a delicate work of intricate and subtle composition: sad, introspective, haunting and somewhat disturbing at times. Nick Grey and Empusae expertly crafted a set of melancholic haunting ritual ballads which should be a must for any discerning listener.

Mastered by IC434, this release comes packed in a luxurious A5 pack with artwork by [Massen Grab] with drawings by Katelijne de Corte.

/
NICK GREY & THE RANDOM ORCHESTRA - THE CANDLELIGHT EYES E.P.

Label: Barl Fire Recordings
Release date: April 2007

Nick Grey and his Random Orchestra return with what, in recording terms, is the prequel to their critically acclaimed and Julian Cope endorsed "Thieves Among Thorns" album from 2006. Clocking-in at just over 40 minutes, the five-track "Candlelight Eyes EP" showcases the signature heartbreaking and brooding melancholy of its aforementioned sister-album, and at times incorporates intimate chamber folk arrangements, all of which draw more from the musical heritage of the mid-1970's German electronic underground, that inspired Bowie's Berlin trilogy, than the pastoral musings of 1970's psychedelic folk. "The Candlelight Eyes EP" features cover-art by Scapegott, is packaged in jewel cases and limited to 200 copies.

Mp3

Horsedry Riversong (excerpt)
Rosary Eyes (excerpt)

/
NICK GREY - THIEVES AMONG THORNS
10 tracks, 53 minutes
Label: Hand/Eye
Catalog #: H/E022
Release date : August 2006

“Thieves Among Thorns” features Nick Grey, Jasmine Pinkerton & Nicholas Davis (from the semi-romantic act Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra). This new collection of songs, stripped bare of the Orchestra’s usual members, reveals a quieter, sadder aspect of their work, and was recorded after Nick dreamed of commiting suicide with a Bible in a Geneva first-class hotel.

As a result, Thieves Among Thorns is all about forlorn piano lullabies, insecure percussions and torpid classical arrangements, eerie ballads and numbing rythms, terminological inexactitudes and sleepy hyperboles. Ten desolate tracks where Nick’s laptop arrangements and quiet, inconsolable vocals interweave with pianist Jasmine Pinkerton’s eastern-Europe sensitivity and Nicholas Davis' precise guitar.

A sound shaped by various failures, breakups and periods of intense doubt : perfect for heartbreaks and codeine addicts.

Beautifully packaged in cardstock 'arigato pak.'

A note from Timothy Renner: "Thieves Among Thorns" is one of the best albums I have heard in years - one of my favorite albums Dark Holler • Hand/Eye has ever released (though, to be fair, I am rather biased to them all). Still, I find this work enchanting and haunting in all the right ways. My highest recommendation.

Mp3 :

Tammuz (excerpt)
End Of All (excerpt)

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230 DIVISADERO - A VISION OF LOST UNITY EP
Label : Milk & moon recordings
Catalog #: MILKMOON03
Release date: August 2006

230 Divisadero is a new project by Matt Shaw (Tex La Homa) and Nick Grey : songs and music written and recorded between England and Canada.

230 Divisadero's first ep, A Vision Of Lost Unity is planned for release on Milk & moon recordings mid 2006, and features the extra participation of Canadian cellist David Widmer. The ep features natural and electronic sounds and atmospheres that can bring to mind the drone music of Sunn O))) or the electronic pulses you might find in a track by coil, two amongst many, many different influences.

www.230divisadero.com
230divisadero@gmail.com

MP3 samples : www.myspace.com/230divisadero

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°catlandgrey° - S/t
Label : Milk & moon recordings
Catalog #: MILKMOON02
Release date: April 2006

Eerie stuttering fostpolk / folktronica with a taste for sunshine and Temesta, by Nick Grey & Nihiruneko. An oneiric, surreal & psychedelic trip to the World Mountain.

°catlandgrey° is available in hand-numbered black digipak from www.milkandmoon.com
The (very) limited edition comes with a creepy animal hand-puppet.
Mp3 samples on www.myspace.com/milkandmoon

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08.05 / Nick Grey - Les Eaux Territoriales
Label : Milk & moon recordings
Catalog #: MILKMOON01
Release date: August 2005

Les Eaux Territoriales, volume one of the Unclear Perspectives mini-series, features over 23 minutes of fresh free rock by Nick Grey and English guitarist Nicholas Davis. Silvery guitar lines, distant drum poundings, warm vocals and chords meandering like a milky stream floating on the bed of the moon. Copies are hand-made, numbered and each one features a slightly different inlay.

Mp3 : Les Eaux Territoriales - excerpt 1; excerpt 2

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NICK GREY & THE RANDOM ORCHESTRA - Regal Daylight
Label : Stateart
Catalog #: AVANT011
Release date: March 2005

An international musical collective with varied influences; an unexpected yet elegant cross between the Tindersticks, David Bowie’s late work and Current 93’s haunted ballads. Regal Daylight, which features the famous Romanian tenor Vasile Moldoveanu as an exceptional guest star, is a hypnotic, lyrical and intimate experience.

"An eccentric and highly literate fantasy" - THE WIRE

"A fascinating blend of organic and electronic elements, Regal Daylight is a wonder of the dark cabaret genre, incorporating inspired choices of instrumentation and vocals filled with discovery and wonder. (...) An eclectic and engaging collection of work, Regal Daylight stands as a testimony to the talent and imagination of Nick Grey and the Random Orchestra." - Re:Gen Magazine

"Hier haben wir es endlich wieder einmal mit einem Album zu tun, das sich all der Oberflächlichkeit dieser Welt widersetzt!" (8,5 of 10) - ORKUS Magazine

"Classical and modern music seemed worlds apart. With the arrival of "Regal Daylight", their joint future now looks bright and beautiful." - Mouvement Nouveau

Mp3 :
The Zealot (full track)
Look Like Moses (excerpt)
Structure And Faith (excerpt)

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EMPI - EMPI
Label : Brume Records
Catalog #: BRUME07
Release date: November 2002

EMPI’s psychorigid first album, released in October 2002 by Brume Records / M10. EMPI is : postrock laments with guitars, neoclassical ballads and disturbed dada-ish poetry in French.

« Something like Snow White lost in a David Lynch movie while listening to John Zorn on her walkman ! » - Elegy Magazine

« An incredible extract of neoclassical intuitions, oneiric advanced arts, "videodrome" - orchestrations, abstract reconnaissances, and futuristic tango. » - Twilight Zone

Mp3 :
pression
joe-no-colt
orthodontie descriptive du cycle

Media Feedback

2005-03-29T02:47:00.000+02:00

There's little point in describing each song that Nick Grey has brought before us on this exceptional album. Suffice to say, nothing is out of place and nothing stands out except ALL of it, yet it is neither an album of songs nor an album of purely experimental works, the record standing shamanically and entirely successfully at the doorway between both genres (...) This album is one of the most truly ambient records Ive heard in many a year, and rotating it endlessly can send the listener close to catatonia and nudging sleep.

- Julian Cope

"Thieves Among Thorns" is one of the best albums I have heard in years - one of my favorite albums Dark Holler Hand/Eye has ever released (though, to be fair, I am rather biased to them all). Still, I find this work enchanting and haunting in all the right ways. My highest recommendation.

- Timothy Renner (Stone Breath)

Qui n'a pas entendu une fois dans sa vie le The World Mountain clôturant cet album n'a rien entendu. (...) Magistral.

- A Découvrir Absolument (Gérald De Oliveira)

(...) Cet album onirique se fait un malin plaisir daccompagner, avec une délicatesse insistante, chaque instant dabandon.

- Les Inrockuptibles

An eccentric and highly literate fantasy.

- The Wire

+ click pictures for more reviews +

/230 Divisadero - S/t

/ Nick Grey - Thieves Among Thorns :

/ 230 Divisadero - A Vision Of Lost Unity :

/ °catlandgrey° - S/t

/ Nick Grey - Les Eaux Territoriales :

/ Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - Regal Daylight