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TRANSLATION LOSS WELCOMES GIANT SQUID TO THEIR FAMILY

http://www.myspace.com/translationlossrecords 

GIANT GRAYCEON circa 2007

We had so much fun touring the entire country a couple years back with our lovely sister band, GRAYCEON, we decided to do it again!! We're hitting a lot of cities we never have before, plus returning to some of our favorites! Spread the word, help us where you can. If you got ideas of places you think we HAVE to play, let us know and we'll put you in touch with our booking agent at Starbird Promotions. We can't wait!!!

Giant Squid lost its biggest champion and supporter as well as dearest friend, Adrian Bromley.

Adrian was, on the surface, our unbelievably energetic PR agent. He had been since we were on The End Records, where he got our music into the hands and heads of thousands of people all over the world. When  both Giant Squid and Adrian left that record label, we hired him and his start up company, Ixmati Media. We introduced him to our friends Walken, Cormorant, and La Fin Du monde who he started working tirelessly for as well. He got us, an unsigned band, in the pages of Revolver and Decibel Magazine with huge write ups and reviews, and has dozens of other magazines and websites chomping at the bit about our little band. If he had been here a little bit longer, he would have gotten hundreds more important people buzzing about us, as well as these other bands on his roster, and thus thousands of fans.

Beneath his ever smiling persona though, Adrian was simply the biggest fan and the best friend our band has ever known. He was more excited about our new record and where we were going than any of us were! He'd call me at 1:00 in the morning to say how he was getting goosebumps just thinking about the album and what it could do. He stood by the band and I during our hardest, most painful and desperate times when no one else would. 

Adrian has been calling me every couple days, bursting with excitement about some new review or interview that he got for us, or some crazy idea he had to get us into Popular Science magazine - just cause we sing about the ocean and its critters. He thought we should put little rubber squids in every press package we sent out to magazines and websites, just so they'll remember us as that band that, well, put little rubber squids in their packages. I used to LOVE that shit about him! So much imagination and energy and love.  His heart was fucking huge and his brain was like a locomotive.

I'll never get another text from him saying "Call me now!!" or "Are you sitting down!? You're not going to believe what I have to tell you!" Adrian and I will never talk about superhero movies again. I'll never get another email from "Canuck Squid" as he loved to call himself, sending me pictures of his fat ass cat, Yosemite Sam. 

I called in sick today for you dude, and then went record shopping even though I'm totally broke. Because that's the way you, "the vinyl pillager" rolled. Fuck, it's Monday night. You would have already called me by now for something or another.

Adrian, I had never seen you happier and more confident in these last months, which at least eases my heart a little. You found yourself in a whole new way and were hitting the ground running full speed with your company and your label. I'm crushed knowing that the world won't get to see your dreams come to fruitation. But, we all still have our copies of Unrestrained, ripe with the articles written by the one and only "Energizer" Bromley. And, Giant Squid has our entire career to remember you with, as we owe you everything.

I can't believe you're gone my friend. I really loved you a lot. We all did. Giant Squid will never forget you. 

Giant Squid is extremely proud to announce the guest appearances on our up coming album, The Ichthyologist, now scheduled for a Feb 3rd release, available only through the band at myspace.com/giantsquid, and limited to only a thousand copies.

Hopefully, while we have a bunch of you excited by the news below, we can convince you to throw down some cash in advance as we have also made The Ichthyologist available for preorder from our myspace page. You'll be guaranteed (if you live in the U.S.) to have the album in your mailbox by the third, if not a day or two earlier. The first fifty orders get a real sevengill shark tooth collected by yours truly from the bottom of the tanks in which I dive in daily at The Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco. Yep, a real shark tooth freshly fallen from the mouth of the beasts that inspire us so. Just don't hurt anybody with it.

Three female legends in underground heavy music adorn The Ichthyologist with masterful performances.

Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering, Agua de Annique) laid down goose bump inducing, soaring vocals on Sevengill (speaking of sharks teeth). Just as in all the guest performers on The Ichthyologist, we had absolute faith in Anneke's ability to raise one of our songs to a level unimagined by us. Being that she resides in her homeland of Holland, she had to record her vocals at home. We gave her the song, lyrics and the basic parts to sing over in any way she saw fit. Her tracks were the last to come in on the final day of mixing. I had already laid down all my vocals by this point, not having any idea how they were going to relate or feel side by side with hers. We did not hear one note of her performance until it was mixed in to the song, and so when we sat down in the control room and listened to Sevengill in it's entirety for the first time, chills ran through all of us. She delivered a larger than life performance, like only she could. All heart and power.

Here's what Anneke had to say about it: "When I was asked to sing on the new Giant Squid album I was just over the moon! After we did a small U.S. tour together in 2006 I really got into their music and still there is not a week that goes by that I don't play their songs. From what I hear their new material is fantastic. The music is intense and emotional; rock that is heavy on the heart. I love it and I love being part of it!"

Kris Force (Amber Asylum, Neurosis) also recorded her ethereal tapestry of violins on Mormon Island by her self, taking our sparse, fragile little song into her own hands and effortlessly making it a personal favorite of everyone in the band. If there was a musical equivalent to being a forgotten spirit, forced to haunt the bottom of a murky lake for eternity, it would sound like the wall of ghostly gorgeousness that Kris created. Having her on our record is an immense honor for both Bryan and I, as Jackie (a veteran member of Amber Asylum for over ten years) can tell you what fan boys we are.

Karyn Crisis (Crisis), who is a metal hero to so many - inspiring countless female metal fans to take hold of the microphone themselves and brutalize audiences in ways never seen before years before it became almost commonplace - is the only woman on the planet who could deliver vocals like she did on Throwing a Donner Party at Sea. Uncompromising, vein bursting, mountain lion like ferocity that perfectly captured the anxiety, fear, and pure pissed off punk rock rage that this song embodies. She is an icon and a pioneer, and has become a dear friend of the band. The Ichthyologist wouldn't have been complete without her roar on it.

Here is what Karyn Crisis had to say about it: "I am honored to be a guest vocalist on the new Giant Squid album! I've been a longtime admirer of the Squid's dynamic songwriting and clever storytelling… and with the dramatic addition of the cello, this album is sure to be epic!"

In addition to tracking Karyn Crisis's vocals, legendary bay area producer, Billy Anderson (Neurosis, High On Fire) also took the time out of his hectic recording schedule to record the rest of the guest appearances by some of our favorite people at Shark Bite Studios in Oakland, CA.

Lorraine Rath (Amber Asylum, Worm Ouroboros, The Gault) bestowed upon us some crushingly beautiful flute on Sevengill. Lorraine is such an incredible song writer, who took a woeful song and just made it heart breaking. In addition to the tenderness she portrays in the song's much quieter first half, she literally wrote the perfect flute part to go over a 6/7, ultra heavy barrage of melody at the end of the track.

Nate Perkins (The Lesdystics) has been a long time friend and contributor to Giant Squid's previous incarnations in our shared home town of Sacramento. He's a trumpet workhorse who we had coming up with incredible parts on the spot for over three songs on the record. Nate is a mind reader. He would listen patiently to my sometimes absurd descriptions of imaginary trumpet parts in my head, and then quickly come up with fantastic arrangements that were far superior to anything I could have conceived. Now if we can just get him to tour with us!

Last but not least, Jackie's own lovely sister, Cat Gratz, came in and played oboe on Emerald Bay, creating the quintessential forlorn sea shanty sound we strived for in that track. Her touching performance is simultaneously heartwarming and foreboding – an eerie contrast to the grim nature of the song's lyrics.

On Giant Squid's myspace page, you can watch a short you tube video in which, if you watch all the way to the end, you'll be able to hear bits of ALL the guest performances, as well as watch the studio footage of those who recorded their parts in Oakland with Billy Anderson. In addition there is a very short little video of Jackie and I doing some vocal takes and a bit of banjo jangling in Matt Bayles's studio, the Red Room in Seattle.

Enjoy!

~Aaron Gregory

Everyone in Giant Squid has been waiting for the day when we'd finally be able to post a song on line that was truly us, in the now, representative of all who are in the band. So, we've posted a track off our new record, The Ichthyologist, on our MySpace page. The song is called "Blue Linckia" and it's the eighth track on the album. Though it's a very thorough sample of all things currently Giant Squid, it's definitely the most hopeful - dare I say cheerful - song on the whole record. Don't be alarmed! By the time you get to the eighth track on The Ichthyologist, you might just need some cheering up!! The theme and lyrics of the song are the epitome of the whole concept of the record, so we saw it as a fitting first taste to hopefully excite some fans and intrigue some new listeners.

The track listing of The Ichthyologist is:

PANTHALASSA Lampetra tridentata
LA BREA TAR PITS Pseudomonas putida
SUTTERVILLE Vibrio cholerae
DEAD MAN SLOUGH Pacifastacus leniusculus
THROWING A DONNER PARTY AT SEA Physeter catodon
SEVENGILL Notorynchus cepedianus
MORMON ISLAND Alluvial Au
BLUE LINCKIA Linckia laevigata
EMERALD BAY Prionace glauca
RUBICON WALL Acipenser transmontanus

We've also posted the album cover art on our MySpace as well, though it won't really appear exactly like it does on the site. The nature of the really cool, very unique foldable packaging we're using, called an Arigato-Pak made by Stumptown Printers in Portland, OR, has the image wrapping around all sides of the album. Imagine a digi-pak size match book. We'll announce all the incredible guest appearances on the album, along with some studio footage of most of these lovely people, as well as a pre-order option in just a couple weeks.

Hell yeah OBAMA!!!