// 28.07.2009

New Twitter page ! Befriend me !  www.twitter.com/nicolaigrey

// 02.05.2009

New project online : Foxtrot Empire.

I have just set up a myspace page for my brand new project Foxtrot Empire. Check it out right here and please feel free to comment on the music :

www.myspace.com/foxtrotempire

Although this is quite different from my usual gurgles, I do hope you will enjoy it. Plenty of fun recording this with Louis Pontvianne, an album to come soon !




// 30.06.2008

New Release : Nick Grey "Spin Vows Under Arch"

Nick Grey & The Random Orchestra - Spin Vows Under Arch

With Charlemagne Palestine, Martyn Bates, Matt Shaw, Jessica Constable, Kris Force, Far Black Furlong, Jean Marie Mathoul....

Out now on Beta Lactam Ring Records




First ed. of 500 numbered copies in a full color book bound CD case and full color booklet. 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 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 Vow’s 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.

Tracklist :

1    King Flood (The Slide)
2    Miller, 1918
3    Your Greatest Hunger
4    Black Paper, Mountain
5    Couvre-Feu
6    Italian Cities Fight Smog
7    La Zone Battue
8    Setting Expectations
9    Porno Drone (Evil Spiders Have Put A Curse On Our Garden)


// 02.06.2008

230 Divisadero - The Breather Key - out now

Apollolaan recordings are now taking orders for "the Breather Key" 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.

// 15.04.2008

Grey Force Wakeford

Out now : Grey Force Wakeford cd.
Read all about on : http://www.arsregia.org/release_page.php?IDitem=44 .

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 (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.

// 15.01.2008

And I couldn't talk properly for two months. And my father said I was going to have to write, and he said he would help me with the spelling, and he pointed out the difficult words and spelled them with care, and I thought "I don't need these words anyway". And he helped me with the spelling of my name. And my name is a palindrome, and it can be read identically from both sides, each side having a different meaning. And I will speak my name aloud and spell it slowly until it is complete. And last summer i had my wisdom teeth coming in all wrong and I was in great pain. And the weather was unbearably hot and dry. And I live on a lake that has odd magnetic properties, which affect my conscience in different ways. And the name of the lake is a palindrome, and it can be read identically from both sides. And both sides have the same meaning. The meaning is CONCEAL. And I remember saying to myself "I have to do something". And I remember not being able to write it down for my father because my hand was unsteady. And I dipped my hand in the cold water of the lake. And it helped. And I try to read a book a month, at least. And I try every now and then to join Personal Development groups because they help me identify and reinforce my positive traits. And I will use avoidance and collaboration, and I will now express my thoughts in a clear manner. And I will reinforce my leadership upon those who surround me. I understand where I need to make changes. And I am prepared for what is coming next.