Well-travelled multi-instrumentalist Justin Grounds stops by Brighton in support of his stunning new album The Dissolving due for release on the 12 April. It is a record which spans that paradox, with warm, ancient violin melodies being driven along by glitchy electronic beats and echoes of drum’n’bass records; holy silences and landscapes of sound cut open by ecstatic crescendos of analogue synths and crushed vocals.
“As my life was drawn into this very organic rhythm, the tides, the fire, the chopping of the wood… in a strange way creatively I started getting drawn into the electronic side of my studio. All the time I was working on this record I was deeply seduced by the idea of combining the sheer purity, almost divine, but cold perfection of the electronic sounds with the fragmented and flawed, yet warm wooden sounds of the string instruments. Somewhere in the joining of these two sides of the spectrum came a profound and hopeful movement.”
Driven along by crisp drum ‘n’ bass samples, cracked analogue synth basslines and electro-acoustic textures, the songs took shape with plucked violins and percussive pianos sent through tape delays, small fragments of thumb piano chiming and creating a harmonic structure. On top of all this music the lyrics began to shape themselves, mystical streams of song that made themselves known in the final stages of composition, as if appearing in the mist over the ocean.
Sunday 14 March 2010
Doors: 7.30pm
@ The Sanctuary Cafe
myspace.com/justingrounds
(Photo credits: John Englezos)
