Grey Revell

Indie / Folk Rock / Experimental

Charlotte, NC / New York, NY

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About

Somehow or other, Grey's always managed to thrive under no-win rules. I've never dared ask him how, because I didn't want it to be my fault if thinking about it put glue in the pinwheel. But I do know that in the eight years or so I've been listening, admiring and philosophizing -- from his dark, acoustic Midnight Eye (1998) to his guitar-heavy, back to the garage Kamikaze (2002) -- he's become more and more himself: the voice grainier, the subjects earthier, the sense of love and awe more rapturous. Now, on Little Animals, he's managed to find the exactly right place to go next.
I did finally get around to asking Grey what his story was. He sent me an email saying he was born in Los Angeles, CA. in 1973, lived there until 1998, then New York and New Orleans, where through fire and flood, he's spent almost 3 years as a neighbor of Alex Chilton and Cossimo Matassa (You know, one of those things that means nothing, but how could you not mention it?). He also told me -- I'm just going to quote this -- "I prefer to let my wife buy my clothes these days. I cook a mean Cornish game hen. I have a very selective memory, but I'm good with voices."
Okay, stop right there. See, that's Grey for you. Feigning to tell all, yet giving nothing away. Not a word about his politics (good), manners (ditto), who does his hair (a Cuban at Astor Place, when he's in New York), favorite food (don't know), favorite composer (I'm guessing Ennio Morricone), and exactly how he cooks the hen. (I'm guessing with a lot of garlic). Won't tell you that he's been known to turn down cheap red wine-- I've seen this done. Won't brag about his taste in selecting people to play with -- he's got to be the only guy with Spencer Chakedis, Brer Brian, Ish Marquez, Peter Dizozza and the great Jeffrey Lewis together and onstage at any given time -- and in choosing songs to cover. (He's also got to be the only guy to have recorded both the Big Star weeper "Thirteen" and Tom Verlaine's "Days") And ask him sometime about being the voice of Emmanuelle Chriqui's lover in "Adam and Eve" -- maybe he'll tell you, maybe he won't. Your basic man of mystery.
So here's Little Animals. And the real mystery, of course, is where he pulls these songs out of, how he knows the things you thought only you knew, and how he makes the music sound like these fluctuations of inner weather. Grey's always had a gift for songs about the utter and absolute misery of love, and in "The Devil's Boot's Don't Creak" it's stretching him on the rack to a new level of melancholy; yet in the title song, the prospect of two damaged souls truly seeing into one another verges on a impossible act of grace (no pun intended, Patsy). More artfully than ever, he's mixing textures and genres, from lo-fi pop "The Way You Hold My Head" (his "variation on a theme" of Lloyd Cole) to dirge ("This One Tomorrow") to Spaghetti Samurai ("The Honor The Power The Glory"), while always sounding exactly like himself. (Told you he listened to Ennio Morricone.)
Little Animals captures that sense of wonder when you've dared to wish for a fresh impossibility and something more than you thought you deserved drops right out of heaven -- after you've worked your ass off. It's Grey Revell's best record. Hands down. So far. - The Cappuccino Kid Mission Viejo, CA. January 2006