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Available on CD and heavyweight vinyl. The vinyl edition is limited to 300 copies cut by the legendary Rachad at Dubplates & Mastering. Each cover is an ORIGINAL lino-cut print by Carina Thorén that extends over the front & back covers… CD is the ’standard’ ROOM40 triple gatefold style with totally different artwork to the LP.
For Barry Ray is the husband and wife duo of Carina Thorén (Sweden) and John Chantler (Australia). After a number of compilation appearances, long gone CDrs and lathe cut records under various guises, the pair bunked down over the winter of 06/07 to lay the foundations for ‘New Days’, kicking off things Christmas morning with the gift of a London turned silent and a sky free of planes.
On ‘New Days’, the sound moves from the wash of organs and lofi analog detail that opens the record to ecstatic blasts of freeform percussion and electronics, some hypnotic distorted keyboards and looped flute tones. Dom Garwood (Alexander Tucker / Ladywoodsman et al) dropped by for a meal and laid down some clarinet parts. The records second half increases the sense of space. An old Swedish folk melody is buried beneath waves of fuzz while Loren Connors-esque guitar notes step gently in the wake. Two short interludes follow, the thrum and pause of ‘The Porcelain Horse’s analog tape manipulations and the heavily processed guitar loop of ‘If Mingus was your Mother’ – its intimately suggested backbeat gently peeled back by computer interventions… The record closes with a piece of extended quietitude – acoustic guitar and piano notes ring out against great chunks of silence.
Reviews
“New Days … could easily be one of the best drone/audio sculpture works I have ever heard. Restrained, dynamic and melodic while also at times totally blissed-out, the work is proof that John Chantler and Carina Thoren (the duo who are For Barry Ray) have done their homework. The grasp of minimalism and tonal exploration that this duo possess raises the bar for others producing in this vein…
Regardless of what type of music you enjoy, New Days is an example of just how sonic exploration and song craft can be controlled and interwoven while allowed to exist in a relaxed, natural state. The quality of Carina and John’s work far outweighs anything this writer can possibly say to describe just how inherently enjoyable and utterly listenable this album actually is. Instrumental, experimental music rarely gets better than this – 9/10″ Foxy Digitalis
“Hypnotic without the head-lulling stuff and sincere to the bone, “New Days” is a treasure of the best anti-climactic proportions” GAZ-ETA.
“Unique, bizarre and incredibly rewarding … some of the most beautiful psych-tinged dronescapes I’ve heard for ages” Boomkat
“a very fine work of really alternative rock, with a true keen ear for experimentalism” Vital Weekly
“Beautifully poised between blissed-out melody and anodyne improv, New Days is a richly nuanced collection that urges repeat visits.” Grooves Magazine
“It’s a soaring, drifting, ever-vanishing and ever-appearing kind of illusion, static and dynamic simultaneously, like a thought looping yet changing color and focus” Sonoloco
“strålande musik som både är frisinnad, egensinnig och vacker.” Magnus Olsson, Sound of Music
“vague organ patterns, ghostly guitar whispers, unsettling ambience, austere experimentation and becalmed drones form glacial underwater ceremonies and dreamtime musings packed in a beautiful aura of emptiness and vastness” Mats Gustaffson, The Broken Face
