Berlin-based British artist Gemma Ray has been calmly clocking up a cool reputation on the international independent scene, and the music keeps on coming – The Exodus Suite being her 7th in as many years. A prolific and shape-shifting musician/songwriter/producer, she skirts around pop-noir, sideways blues, gothic folk, 60s girl-group and cinematic rock n roll. NME describe her as “untouchable”, and Paste magazine pronounced her to be “blazing her own silvertone trail”. Her last album, Milk For Your Motors (which features an eclectic guestlist that includes Suicide's Alan Vega, Howe Gelb and the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg) has received no lesser accolades, with AMERICAN SONGWRITER calling it “an extraordinary addition to an already impressively idiosyncratic catalog” and MOJO giving it ****Album of The Week and calling it “unpredictable and inspired”, to name but a few.
Gemma Ray’s latest “The Exodus Suite”, is a dramatic 52-minute odyssey through her unique torch song psychedelia. Described as “beautiful, as ever” (MOJO****) and “a moving collision of past and present” (UNCUT 8/10), the album was recorded live in seven days at the infamous Candy Bomber Studios (situated in the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin) by Ingo Krauss.
The album's title is a reference to the unexpected yet inescapable fact that during The Exodus Suite sessions there were 8,000 Syrian refugees housed in the hangar beneath the studio. The stark reality of the refugees’ circumstances (whom are still housed there to this day), and the experience of these sights, sounds and smells right within spitting distance, lent a profoundly immediate dimension to Gemma Ray’s lyrical explorations on this album .
The Exodus Suite is set in two parts, starting with a hymn-like paean to nature's forces, “Come Caldera”, a prelude that then kicks into the soulful grit of “There Must Be More Than This”, an Afro-Beat meets Krautrock gambol with a sprinkling of Ethiopiques (courtesy of guest pianist Carwyn Ellis (Edwyn Collins/Zarelli). The next track “The Original One” is a soft lament about modernity, followed by “We Do War“, a chilling lullaby that shifts into a brutal siren song before “Ifs & Buts”, a Latin-tinged, surf-esque wig-out, rounds off Part 1. Part 2’s opener “We Are All Wandering”, has a Beach Boys meets The Wicker Man sound which segues into the improvised soundscape neo-spiritual “Acta Non Verba”. “Hail Animal”, set against a backdrop of brooding psychedelic tension, is an ode to the nature’s vastness and our place within it. “The Switch”, an intimate guitar and voice number, transitions into “The Machine”, an explicit call for human connection against the threat of technological distraction set to a synth groove. Finally, the esoteric, skulking “Shimmering” rounds off the album.
Some album formats come with the bonus track “Caldera, Caldera!” a playful and up -tempo companion piece to “Come Caldera”. The vinyl version of the album offers these two songs back to back on a bonus 7”, The Calderas.
For this album Gemma recorded all her lead vocals live with band, with only backing vocals, organs and extra flourishes added in afterwards. Aiming to capture a natural sound that revels in any so-called human “flaws”, the album’s monumentally ornate sound was sculpted out of this simplicity, with microphone spill being an integral part of the production approach. “The Exodus Suite” is performed by Gemma Ray on vocals, guitars, Mellotron, and organ, accompanied by Andrew Zammit on drums, percussion, organ, synth, and additional guitar, Fredrik Kinbom on bass and lap steel guitar, and featuring Carwyn Ellis on piano and Wurlitzer (on the tracks “There Must Be More Than This” and “Caldera, Caldera!”).