Art by Tony Mahony
Dave Graney and Clare Moore, (strangely)(emotional).
15 track album (includes two versions of one song).
All instruments played by Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
Dave Graney, guitars, bass, autoharp, harmonica, vocals.
Clare Moore, drums, vibes, keys, percussion, backing vocals.
Joined by Shane Reilly (Lost Ragas) pedal steel on the opening track, Dave Wray (aka Frank Bennett) on tenor and soprano sax for three songs, Genevieve Fry (Cold Hands Warm Hearts) on harp on one song, Will Hindmarsh (aka Twinkledigitz) and Emily Jarrett on backing vocals on two songs and Catherine McQuade, bass and mixing on another.
Mastered by beats / hip hop producer and drummer Plutonic Lab who had collaborated with Dave Graney on the homage track GRACE TAME IS PRESIDENT in 2022.
“As I have said many times nobody else is making music like this. A combination of the familiar tropes of rock and pop intermingled with literary lyrical explorations, jazz elements, ambient sounds, and a degree of abstraction masking astute commentary on the state of the world today. There are more ideas in these 15 songs than most artists achieve in their careers”.
Bob Osborne – DIFFERENT NOISES – Salford UK
(strangely)(emotional) is released April 12th 2024.
Preorder the album here. https://davegraney1.bandcamp.com/album/dave-graney-and-clare-moore-strangely-emotional
Early review of the album from Different Noises Bob Osborne in Salford UK
https://differentnoises.home.blog/2024/02/12/may-you-live-in-emotional-times/
Dave Graney and Clare Moore have in recent years been swinging between song focused studio albums (like this one) and more band focused rock albums, (like their previous set In A Mistly).
(strangely)(emotional) is so carefully titled because that’s the age we live in. A person has to be sure and careful of their words. It’s a sensitive area, the world, in 2024. Even though it is also brutal , viral and violent all at once. (The ground we walk upon is contested and just holding together with surface tension). So the words are quarantined from each other, in parentheses so as not to be qualifying or commenting on the other.
The sounds on the album come from vintage drum machines, electric (six and twelve string) and acoustic (nylon and steel string) guitars, pedal steel, harp, harmonica, electric piano, drums, vibes, marimba, mellotron and tenor and soprano sax.
The words are rich, playful and very personal. Dave Graney is a proud Creative Creep.
(strangely)(emotional) comes after a year where Graney and Moore toured the country to joy and acclaim with their 90s band Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes. This album was cooking away in the background all the while.
It’s a Dave Graney and Clare Moore album. They’ve always done their own thing. This time, it’s (strangely)(emotional)
CREATIVE
CREEP First single from the epic 2024 album (strangely)(emotional) which is to
be released on classic jewel case Compact Disc April 12th. Touring near you,
soon.
Murry Wilson was Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys father. This is a link to his only album release.
Touring near you, soon.
Friday May 3rd Dave Graney and Clare Moore play The Agrestic Grocer, Orange NSW
Saturday May 4th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play The Boutique Room, Katoomba NSW.
Sunday May 5th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play THE STAG AND HUNTER, Newcastle NSW.
Friday May 10th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play Lyric Lane, Maylands , WA
Saturday May 11th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play the Duke Of George in East Fremantle, WA.
Saturday May 18th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play the Northern Arts Hotel in Castlemaine, Vic
Saturday June 8th (strangely)(emotional) Melbourne album launch at Kindred in Yarraville.
Back In A Day
Just me on guitars and Shane Reilly on pedal steel. Lyrically its setting down a bit of an agenda or course. Or game plan. People say "back in the day" so casually. Here I say "better to say back in A day..." It's an important distinction when you talk about your life.
Family Gatherings
I wanted to write a song about a particular time in my life when my mothers sisters and my fathers brothers all had kids around the same time and they would often come to visit. Young parents with their strange, rival children. A brief period just before I went to school. The visits stopped after a while and we had no car until I was a teenager so did no visiting of our own. I mention records my mother used to play and shoes and dresses they favoured. The guitar only on this version. Clare thought it sounded nice as just guitar and vocal. Tuned to open D.
My Cancellation Came Through
Guitar tuned to open G. Clare playing a drum sample on her Ensoniq which hits a low D note. Dave Wray on saxophone. Just singing about how peaceful it must be when you are eventually cancelled by the social world. Its finally happened and you don't have to worry any more.
Creative Creep
A noun and an adverb and verb. Two chords on the guitar, built up from a single lick on the guitar. Sax from Dave Wray. I tried to miix it low like the Stones used to do in the 70s. Dave played on several tracks on our last album In A Mistly. He lives up near Lismore.
Love Story
Dave Wray on sax. Another song about my first kiss. I play bass and guitar and Clare plays piano and keys (strings). "That farm girl! Hot pimples on her forehead! Her hair was bone dry- like mine..."
I Said No To Myself
I thought I knew what I was talking about on this track but I think I might have been saying something else too. Sometimes that happens. It's a risk you take writing and singing words. Clare on keys and me on guitars and bass. Will Hindmarsh (Twinkeldigitz) and Emily Jarrett from the Routines, Rockin Pelmets and GoGo Sapien and Damien Cowells Disco Machine contributed these incredible vocals.
UK soundtrack maestro Barry Adamson is doing a remix of this song.
Ice Bergman
A swinging jazz R&B tune from the Soundpark sessions for our previous album. It didn't seem to fit with that. I sing "I'm gonna be old in the end times" in the chorus but that seemed to be too much as a title. Clare came up with Ice Bergman. A play on words and a nod to a cold Swedish film maker. Clare on drums and vibes and me on guitars and bass.
They Walk Among Us
Recorded at Soundpark studios. Clare on drums and vocals. Me on guitars. I played bass but we asked Catherine McQuade to do a remix and she put her bass playing on it. I heard all these anti vax "no" voting people yelling about being "sovereign citizens" and started to write about "ha'penny people", "bitcoin buddies" and "florin entities" "pounds shillings and pence over the fence no sense - LS Demons...." etc
We worked on this track YOU CAME TO ME IN A DREAM with Cathy last year. I wrote the lyrics.
He's Talkin' To His Base
They give free passes to right wing populist figures like Trump and let them say all manner of foul shit and excuse them by saying they are "talking to their base". "Base" also meaning the lowest of a persons nature. Worked on this track for a few years. Just liked the chords. Built up the guitars and added base. Clare plays electric piano.
I'll Cluster It
This is probably the (strangely)(emotional) song. Its parts of a groove I put together for a song called KING OF THE DUDES in 2012. I just added this vocal one day. It seemed to be quite mysteriously confessional. Very oblique but very personal. Strangely emotional. I'm confessing to a few weaknesses. I can't help. I'll cluster it.
Already Missing The Lockdown
Hey, who didn't enjoy a moment or two when the world ground to a halt there in 2020? And we learned so much. So much was laid bare. We didn't have to be anywhere. We couldn't do anything wrong....
Nylon string guitar tuned to open G. Clare on piano.
Poor Covid
A drum loop from Clare's Ensoniq keyboard and I started to play a bluesy groove.
I thought the title "Poor Covid " sounded like an old folk song. Like Tam Lin from Fairport Convention.
Covid was an illuminating moment that showed us how sick the world was.
You Were Gaslit For This
A simple looped rhythm. Discovered it while tooling around on an older song from 1999. Twelve string electric guitar. Sampled aacoustic bass. Clare on piano and Will Hindmarsh and Emily Jarrett on vocals.
It has a stiff, automated, looped rhythm and then we played it on real drums and bass and acoustic guitars as a crazy coda to finish it. An interesting musical jump sideways all over, this track.
Madly, Softly, Hardly
One of the songs we started playing around with during a long lockdown in 2020. Then we forgot it and then found it again and recorded it with drums and vibes in at Soundpark studios. I asked Genevieve Fry from Cold Hands Warm Heart to play some harp on it. Its played with a drop D string on the guitar.
I play bass on it. Autoharp and acoustic and electric guitar. Lyrically I say it all here. I was thiinking about people and events from the past and dwelling on it all. Madly, Softly, Hardly. Singing about getting older and losing your sharpness. Disappearing in many ways.
When we began to play live again in 2020 and 2021 we drove everywhere with our gear in the van. On one trip we were outside Port Macqquarie and a show dropped out but we didn't want to go all the way back to Melbourne ( a few days drive) and then back up again so we set up a tent by a river on a farm and stayed there for a week. An open fire at night and cooking on an iron griddle. I kept hearing this quite distinct birdcall in the morning and evening and recorded it on my zoom. I also recorded some cicadas and other birds and put it all onto the beginning and end of this track.
Family Gatherings II
The second version of this song to close the album. Some more lyrics at the end and a drum machine, a bass and dave Wray on soprano sax.
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