sexta-feira, 17 de março de 2017

Endless Grey by A Thousand Hours - Track by Track


Epicamente melancólico, denso e insinuantemente climático, assim é "Endless Grey" primeiro álbum, lançado há poucas horas do A Thousand Hours.

Sob a concepção de Red, guitarras e vocais, o A Thousand Hours concebeu um disco de extrema beleza, evocando sombras da sonoridade tipicamente 4AD,  pinçando atmosferas shoegaze numa linha tênue entre o etéreo e o slowcore, não a toa a banda não deixa de reverenciar nomes como Red House Painters e Low.

Mas "Endless Grey" vai muito além de rótulos, as guitarras desaceleradas e cristalinas aparecem em cascatas servindo para a bela voz de Demi Haynes nos guiar ao paraíso.

Vale ressaltar algumas participações extra especiais como Nico Beatastic e Mandy Claire do Lights That Change, sem contar a masterização que ficou sob a tutela do Capitão Greg Wilson da DKFM.

Sublime resume "Endless Grey", mas o TBTCI não contente com essa rara beleza, pediu a Red que esmiuçasse em detalhes quase sórdidos música a música e o resultado você lê abaixo.

Apaixone-se pelo A Thousand Hours.


"Endless Grey" - Track by Track (By Red)


Hello, this is Red from a Thousand Hours and its my privilege to give the readers of The Blog That Celebrates Itself some insight into the songs off our debut release "Endless Grey". I just hope I don't bore you all with my trite banal reflections, well.. you've already read this far.

Endless Grey:
This is one of the first songs we started working on for A Thousand Hours. It started pff as a demo I made for my solo poject Swain, but I knew right away that it was getting into darker territory that wasn't the right fit for it, more into lyrical territory of the Cure, and as a result the music took on a somber not. Its about the fleeting nature of everything, and how ultimately everything is inconsequential. Mandy Clare from Lights That Change is on the backing vocals, along with Demi. There presence was very much needed to sort of breath a little bit of beauty into this one.

B:
I'm proud of every song on this album, but this is probably the crown jewel... and naturally, it was the biggest pain in the ass to complete. I still groan when I hear my vocals because I think they could be so much better, but I think thats the nature of the artist, always tearing down. Musically, its got a sort of a Chameleons meets shoegaze thing going for it, very post-punk but swirling and hazy.

Ship:
This song is pretty much all Albert Gresens, he sent me the demo for this with bass and guitar. I told him to rerecord it, mixed it all and laid out some vocals and a lazy drum beat. A reviewer said it was like Jesus and Mary Chain without the pedal effects, usually reviewers are wrong as often as they are right, but I can definitely hear that.

Moments:
This was actually the last song that was made for this album. I was actually trying to shop it out, talked to Rebecca from Emerald Down and Krissy from Whimsical, but with the deadline for all the music being submitted coming up, there was no time for that. So I picked up the mic and recorded the vocals myself. Its a misty homage to my favorite kinds of 80's dream pop.

Tender:
Tender was actually a re-write of a song I made about a year ago for a girl I am more than smitten with. I actually made her almost a hundred songs throughout the course of a year. I was fiddling around with the acoustic guitar one day and played that very Floydian first chord... My mind got to working and I just transferred the lyrics over. Albert is on bass on this one and is playing a very sexy sequence, it almost feels a little dubish to me too.

Hold:
When I started this project, my thought was of a collaborative group kind of like This Mortal Coil, so naturally I needed some interesting instrumental segues. The album didn't pan out a hundred percent like that, but this piece serves a beautiful function in sort of breaking up the first and second half of the record, with this song and the next being sort of the final two tracks of what (in my mind) is side one. Nadi Mack is on all instruments and is wailing a bit like a ghost, though its hard to hear as it was all mixed to sort of blend and be very indistinguishable.

Down:
Down is my personal favorite on this album, though its right up there with B. There is a simplicity and repetition that made the perfect basis point to build on top of. Demi brings some gorgeous background vocals, and a perfect bass line, as well as some great guitar swells. Musically, its got a bit of a Slowdive sound to it with mantra like lyrics that repeat throughout. The other little guitar line that plays during the music chorus (as there are no vocals on it) I played, after listening to some early Red House Painters.


Flood:
This song continues the sort of, water/hopelessness theme that is pevasive on the album. Its a bit post-punkish and the vocals in parts sound like a funeral chorus. It didn't sound so dark when the instrumental tracks came to me, but naturally leave a song with me for over an hour and I will tweak it until its perfectly suitable for despairing in a darkened room. The flood is coming, the clouds are moving, danger is on the horizon.

The Desolate Hour:
This was the single we released back in January, though it sounds a bit different than it did then. I never stop fiddling and so it definitely got some facelift... but you wouldnt know it since the single now has this version. But anyone with the old mp3 can most definitely hear the difference. Another song about the same girl, and missing. Missing is one of the most powerful emotions that can bring you down and keep you in bed. Demi and Albert both are on this track with me, and really the combination of all of us is pretty stellar. Not my favorite song, but a good single.

Rainy Days:
Nico Beatastic doing all the vocals on this. Albert supplying the chilly and cold instrumental tracks. A Psychedelic haze sot of permeates, and bubbles over with a wickedly flangered guitar near the end.

Closure:
The second instrumental track and the albums closer, composed by Albert. I didnt know what to do when I first heard the demo to this. It was spectacular, and dark, but seemed like such a distance away from the opening track Endless Grey. As I sat on the computer, mixing with levels and effects I realized it had to be on the album, and it had to end it. It packs a gnarly and bitter punch, almost akin to the Cure during the pornography era or Joy Division at their angstiest.
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Thanks Red

https://onethousandhours.bandcamp.com/album/endless-grey
https://www.facebook.com/axthousandxhoursx