Gry
Touch of E!
Our Choice / Rough Trade

Well, this is a departure from our usual Luna Kafé procedure to review disks from our home country because the band project Gry cannot be attributed to just one country. Gry is a multi-national collaboration between the Danish singer Gry Bagøien and the German multi-instrumentalist FM Einheit with several guest musicians. Their disk Touch of E! was released by Rough Trade Germany's sub-label for German bands, Our Choice, which justifies a review in the German section of Luna Kafé.

Gry Bagøien sings her lyrics mostly in English, but there are some Danish songs as well, and sometimes she uses both languages in the same song. Her voice holds together the whole disk nicely whereas the music is different on each track. The musicians use the full range of modern musical techniques from conventional played instruments to computerized electronic production.

The first song Poles Apart is built around the rhythm of a noisy loop and filled with strange sounds of vocal and orchestral samples. A promising and upbeat start for the album. The next song Sværmere is a more melodic and dreamy pop song with a kalimba sample.

Everything or All is made of a simple loop and heavily synthesised melodies. Black Balloon is a slow and soft song carried mostly by Gry's voice with a sparse background accompaniment of percussive samples. The varied musical programme is continued in the relaxed reggae rhythm for Luftantenner. The following Far from Flesh is an up-tempo track with orchestral motifs and electronic bubbling in the background.

The title track Touch of E! mixes telephone vocals and old movie soundtrack style melodies over a percussive backing. A really outstanding song on this album is Perfume for Phantoms, a very nice track played by cello and strings with electronically multiplied vocals and magic formulas. Probably my favourite, almost a classical piece. Leave me Alone is a dynamic track alternating between the heavy electronic and soft acoustic parts. In the track Postcard the listener can feel the isolation through the contrast of the thin telephone voice and the full electronic instrumentation. The final track Old Raven is a more conventional track again, with its main melody carried by the cello and Gry's voice - an appropriate ending to the whole disk.

After all, a nice modern pop-album. If you're looking for a good Christmas present...

Copyright © 1998 Lonely Locke