John Grant

Creep Show, John Grant – Yawning Abyss (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 26, 2023 · Comments off

Given the busy schedules of John Grant and Wrangler, it wouldn’t have been surprising if their collaboration Creep Show had ended with their 2018 album, Mr. Dynamite. On Yawning Abyss, however, they not only continue the freewheeling creative momentum of their debut, they also present a tighter, more engaging incarnation of their satirical techno, funk, and electro-pop. Mr. Dynamite’s deadpan drollery lives on in the cheeky percussion and synth tones on “Steak Diane,” where choppy vocal samples and electronics bounce and whoosh with the loopiness of novelty music, but Creep Show spends most of Yawning Abyss taking risks. Most notably, they strip away much of the vocal processing that dominated Mr. Dynamite. Letting Grant and Stephen Mallinder’s untreated voices ring out adds more color and humanity to moments such as “Moneyback,” which pits Mallinder’s dry delivery and Grant’s nimble cadence against the grind of an all-consuming capitalist machine. On “Matinee,” Mallinder’s smoky whispers are the perfect complement to the track’s serpentine industrial-disco. When Creep Show do use vocal effects, they do it artfully: Grant is transformed into a robotic voice of judgment ready to give up on the human race (“You are complicit/But you still do not get it”) on “The Bellows,” Yawning Abyss’ poignantly angry prologue. Here and throughout the album, Creep Show fully live up to their name by confronting society’s most disgusting qualities with equal parts humor and horror. Yawning Abyss reaches its cathartic peak with “Yahtzee,” a cartoonishly scathing portrait of a culture that distracts itself with trivial pursuits while “Nazis tear the country apart,” but its more complex songs have just as much impact. The title track’s sunny nihilism and nostalgia recall the literary tone of Grant’s Boy from Michigan, as does “Bungalow,” a suspenseful character sketch that skillfully balances melodrama and gritty realism. Mallinder takes the lead on “Wise,” another shadowy standout that traces the journey of getting savvy to the world’s disappointments (key lyric: “There is no last laugh”). At once more serious and more playful than Mr. Dynamite, Yawning Abyss homes in on what Creep Show do best, and the ways they skewer corruption and indifference are a treat for fans of any of the artists involved and for anyone else who enjoys eloquent, darkly humorous electronic pop.
– Heather Phares

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John Grant – Love Is Magic (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 25, 2023 · Comments off

John Grant - Love Is Magic (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

“Each record I make is more of an amalgamation of who I truly am,” says John Grant. “The more I do this, the more I trust in myself, and the further along I go.” Even when the Michigan-born man released his debut solo album Queen Of Denmark in 2010, Grant laced sumptuous soft-rock ballads with an array of spacey, wistful synthesiser sounds, increasingly adding taut, fizzing sequencers, nu-synth-disco settings and icy soundscapes to the mix on 2013’s Pale Green Ghosts and 2015’s Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, the latter The Guardian described as, “variously agonising, hilarious, uplifting and moving: another bravura display from a unique song writing talent.” Now, with his fourth solo album, Love Is Magic, Grant has continued evolving, creating his most electronic record yet, in collaboration with Benge (Ben Edwards), analogue synth expert/collector and a member of electronic trio Wrangler, Grant’s collaborators earlier this year under the collective name of Creep Show on the album Mr Dynamite. Produced by Grant, and engineered by Benge at his Cornish studio, the diamond-hard, diamond-gleaming Love Is Magic, “is how I’ve always wanted my records to sound, but I didn’t know how until now,” Grant says. He also called on Paul Alexander of Denton, Texas maestros Midlake, renewing a working relationship that began on Queen Of Denmark. “Paul’s trained in theory and harmonies and was responsible for a lot of the backing vocals,” Grant enthuses. “He comes up with interesting angles rather than the obvious and plays some of the best bass lines I’ve ever heard.” Besides the quest for sound, “the lyrics are exactly as I want them to be,” says John. “They’re not just the doom and gloom of the past, they’re a snapshot of everyday life – the ridiculousness, the pain, the deep longing.”
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John Grant – Boy from Michigan (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 25, 2023 · Comments off

John Grant - Boy from Michigan (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

John Grant arrived at the studio to begin recording his fifth solo record, Boy from Michigan, on 1st March 2020. “So, basically right at the beginning of the pandemic nightmare and all throughout the Presidential campaign,” he says. For Grant, lockdown was largely academic. He is insular by nature and removed himself from his native America in 2011, decamping to Iceland. From afar, the US Presidential race loomed large, though, igniting potent memories of the country which shaped John Grant. 2020’s temporary destabilising of world order suits Boy from Michigan’s intent just fine.
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