May is New Zealand Music Month! For the rest of May, Jamie will review NZ bands, attend (and subsequently write about) NZ shows, and generally give attention to some of the greatest bands you've never heard of.
I first heard Grayson Gilmour when I stopped in to Wellington's Real Groovy to buy the Mint Chicks' new album a few months ago. One of the staff, a slight, heavily pierced goth girl advised I give it a listen after I expressed an interest in local musicians. I think my exact words were, "Wellington has some whip ass bands." To which she replied, "Oh, you MUST hear this guy, then." But I have to admit, during that particular visit I was on my lunch break, I had not eaten anything, and I had to walk (very quickly) back to work. So, I was in a hurry, and only listened to a few seconds of the first three tracks. I shyly set the headphones back to rest on their cradle, and put Gilmour back on the "Staff Recommends" shelf. I think I threw some comment to the goth girl, something like "must come back for that one" or "I can wait to really pay attention to it."
Weeks passed. I bought various other albums, yet none were Grayson Gilmour. I even managed to forget his name, but I never forgot his sound. Within even a few seconds of a few tracks of You Sleep, We Creep, something haunted me. Was it his anxious, breathy falsetto? The asymmetrical composition of the piano-heavy melodies? The answer didn't surface until I finally bought the album and had listened to it all the way through--twice: Grayson Gilmour sounded fresh. And in a world clogged with music, creating a fresh sound is nearly impossible (I would actually argue that it IS impossible to create anything completely original, but that is for another post). Therefore, obvious connections / influences are unavoidable: Rachel's meets Ben Folds Five meets Elliot Smith meets Party of Helicopters meets Thom Yorke meets blank meets blah meets you-get-the-point. My point is that after so many "meets" you must sit back and admit there is an element of new shoe in these well-trodden paces.
Gilmour obviously studied music. You Sleep, We Creep sounds like the product of a musician rather than a kid with musical instruments. From Anchors, with its time signatures that shift like waves on a choppy sea, to Oceans & Notions: a short number, but aching with nostalgia, like a good friend's final wave goodbye--something you wish you could recapture, but which always ends just before you've grasped it, leaving you wishing you had said something else, something better.
So here is what I should have said weeks ago: Grayson Gilmour's latest album You Sleep, We Creep sounds like the combined inner monologues of a thousand breaking hearts as they grapple with apologies, desolation, and the inevitable catharsis. It sounds real. It sounds like you've been here before, but it's better this time, and that's enough.
Artist :: Grayson Gilmour
Album :: You Sleep, We Creep
Verdict :: Highly Recommend
Note: All download links to mp3s posted on D&C have been disabled. You may listen, but you may not have.
Comments