Listen to two tracks from the I Disappear EP:
I Disappear (mp3)
Secret Life (mp3)
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Out of the ashes. Once an acclaimed underground U.K. band based in Scotland, what you see before you is a rare re-invention; what you'll hear is a revelation. Graystar is now a 4-piece band breaking new ground in Seattle. After the U.K. Graystar split in 2008, when most others would settle for a quiet life at home in the studio, Dominic James took his entire life and musical fortune on a long and dogged journey determined to forge a new Graystar on the streets of Seattle.
Strange Boy is the fruit of that labor – a concerto to that hardship. It is their first CD Release. In these songs you can hear the stir and echoes of the displaced individual, the stranger in a strange land, the hopes and fears of a dreamer in exile.
What happens when a British Alt rocker leaves Liverpool, lands on the streets of Seattle and is greeted by an entirely different musical legacy? Perspectives shift. Things change. “I left behind a band of introspective alternative rock and a more down-tempo, melancholic, underground music scene we had once championed,” says Dominic, “I had no idea what to expect. No matter how open minded you are, Seattle's fame as the home of Grunge and that powerful legacy was forefront in my mind when landing on these shores.”
There has been something strange about Graystar from its beginnings. Amidst the 4-piece Indie pop bands that dominated the airwaves at the time, they were a self-absorbed outfit exploring a sound somewhere in between their contemporaries, The Doves and Ian Brown – a place where Philip Glass could meet a less confident Muse. “In the U.K., we had found ourselves surrounded by Indie-pop, New Wave-guitar bands on the streets of Glasgow, Liverpool and Edinburgh. They were the mainstream. That alone made us different from the other bands around us and gained us respect and acclaim for playing music that was very different. When I came to Seattle, I felt excited by the possibilities of seeing what would happen throwing together all these elements of the old and new.”
After a month-long search for musicians, Dominic rounded out the new line-up with Jon Oswalt on drums, Dave Chapaitis on bass, and Billy Brush on piano and keyboards. The result is music that is emotional, eloquent and intricate, but angst-ridden and vulnerable as expressed by the eponymous Strange Boy. The obsessive doubt and the internalizing remains the same about all the characters in the songs. “That's one thing,” says Dominic, “that hasn't changed.”