I, Thalamus new album - Wild Westis the brand new album by Grant Gordon's genre busting outfit I, Thalamus. After the success of the angst rock of Why Aren't We Screaming? (Junk Food/Pinnacle 2004), and the spoken word/electronica mix of Staff (Junk Food/2006), Grant has put together a passionate piece about immigration and racism.It's about people heading Westwards...about pioneers of all kinds...from the wagon trails of the Old West, to Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin heading off into space; from the Chinese cockle pickers who were swept out to sea at Morecambe Bay two years ago to East European immigrants smuggling themselves into refrigerated lorries at Cherbourg to get across the Channel; from those on the edge of West London to junkies queuing up at dawn for their daily methadone. At the core of the album are two images - that of the Berlin Wall, and in the repeated track "Bye Bye Byzantium," the image that Asia is literally moving westwards - the Asian tectonic plate is moving in that direction at an alarming rate per year which will almost certainly lead to a catastrophic earthquake centered around Istanbul.Grant says: "Last year I was obsessed with the old West Berlin. I was making this programme for the BBC about Bowie in Berlin, and became fascinated by the divided city, and the subcultures it spawned. I found my own Cold War Berlin of the soul that year...a horrible painful dichotomy which threatened to tear me apart...and all the time I was thinking about people on the move, especially since the Wall came down. But also because of the legacy of the collapse of the European Empires, which is really the legacy of Slavery. We are reaping what we started sowing 300 years ago when the East and West India Companies first set sail. There is a chaos of national identity. And yet there is a glorious unity too, brought about above all by the power of music. Working in India for the BBC, I recorded the sounds and music of that amazing country, and mixed them into the songs I had been writing...I wanted to find the notes in between the usual ones you hear in rock...take the palette of Indian or Turkish music and fuse it with rock...to find the blue notes, I guess. I had been in Sarajevo in 1996 just after the war had ended, and I was struck by how Balkan music has that amazing crossroads-of-cultures feel...the European and Islamic influences both wonderfully audible...I also thought that no-one really makes political pop music anymore..."Mixing rock with radio, sound effects, location recordings and spoken word, this themed album expresses the contemporary chaos but also how cultures have been massively yoked together recently, through war and slavery yes, but also through food, football, music and love.Grant Gordon is a musician, music producer, radio producer and writer....He was drummer and bassist in The Divine Comedy, is songwriter and producer for Staff, and the kingpin behind I, Thalamus. He also makes radio for the BBC and Channel 4, and produces artists at Ithalamusic. contact him at
[email protected], or on 07958 480041...www.myspace.com/ithalamus...www.myspace.com.staffwo
rk..finally...we now have our own studio in London...drop us a line at
[email protected] or here on myspace if you have an audio need we can help with..we're currently making radio for the BBC and Channel 4, recording a Celtic harpist's EP, chopping up audio from Ethiopia for The Guardian Online, and demoing the new I, Thalamus album. It's a cool place, with great pubs and cafes nearby, and extremely competitive rates...get in touch......and check out Staff if you're into more electronic kinda stuff...
