artist: Grails
title: Black Tar Prophecies Vol 1,2,3
catalog number: imprec105
format: cd
cost: $11.99
release date: August 22, 2006
Important is proud to release The Black Tar Prophecies in it's complete form including two tracks not available on the limited edition vinyl only releases.
At the start of 2005 Grails returned to the US
from a month long European tour. Stepping off the plane most of the band
walked in one direction and the violinist strayed off in another. It ended
up being the last time most anyone would see or talk to him. A bandmate
of 3 records and 5 years had vanished only to exist in the form of vague
rumors (violin hocked for petty cash, living on the streets, etc). As
the varied reports of brief encounters and sightings grew stranger and
darker, the band started a series of recordings called Black Tar Prophecies.
The remaining members had particular dissatisfactions with how the band
had been grouped into the innocuous contemporary 'post-rock' movement.
This frustration, combined with newly liberated instrumental roles, introduced
new possibilities for the band's sound. In this way the collected Black
Tar Prophecies ends up being a more idiosyncratic mission statement
for future Grails recordings, revealing their fondness for the
groundfloor 60's and 70's experimental artists that saw music as a process
of discovery as opposed to the pre-conceived, pre-parametered, commodified
sport that underground music has become.
A parallel is now forming between Grails and old-school experimental
bands like Faust who, rejecting their past, started over from the
beginning to build new languages in music.Grails third full length
recording, and first full length since leaving Neurosis' label
Neurot, is The Black Tar Prophecies. Seven of these nine
tracks from this full length were released in small highly sought after
pressings of 12” vinyl on two European labels.
.
The Black Tar Prophecies is a massive evoltionary step in the established
Grails sound and it is shrouded in change and pain. The somewhat
clinical studio sound and recording style which has established them a
tremendous following has been replaced with a much more free and conceptual
recording style. This method liberated the group in the studio and these
recordings feel much more open, heavy and for lack of a better term “psychadelic.”
We're not talking about the cliché co-opted psychadelic fashion,
but psychadelia as a reckless embrace of new states of mind and possibilities.
This sound has always existed within a Grails song but now it's
been heavilly pushed to the foreground. Perhaps even more elloquently
and simply stated, Black Tar Prophecies 1-3 is their best record
yet.