Grace wraps her smoky sounds around a nuevo funkified jazzy
sound. Bass and chimes winds around the rip of a sassy guitar riff. She and her
sophisticated sounding band make wonderful use of timpani.
She employs her voice like an instrument. She has a completely different
sound going on. I can’t pin point who this reminds me of so I won't I will let
her be her own entity. With her slinky sensual look coated in dark colors, she
handles the stage like a chanteuse from another era.
She released the 3 song EP"Polluted" earlier this
year. The songs don't fall easily into any one category. Grace has a
special knack of blending different aspects of sound design. These tracks possess an otherworldly Latin aura.
Whipping out "Hey hey" in an ascension then descending
style, she grizzles the word like hot sauce dripping on your tongue. Even
though it is sizzling hot you don't want the feeling to stop. The pace of
the song is measured with a hefty use of percussion. You feel the bongo, drums
and the slap dash of the guitar. The sound designs prove fresh like a baby's first rodeo. She handles her band with poise and charm. Still she is capable of a slap a well time touch to get her horse off and running.
The slower pace of “Standards” highlights her lush, rich vocals.
She thinks she doesn’t belong and is not sure where she should go. The light
tap tap tap on the bongos opens this track. She brings her voice into the
picture so it can match the bongos time. A seemingly Spanish style guitar rolls
nicely into the track. Again she uses the timbre of her voice to move the words
up then down to advantageous effect. The song slips to a hushed ending.
"Sombre Storm" incorporates her haunting vocals like
blackberry smoke covering a rain stained dance floor. It's actually has a
new hoodoo voodoo vibe. She weaves he vocals in and around the
pinch finger snaps. She allows her sounds to guide the song before it
dries out in the assembled background. The songs end with cease fire
of the candle wick.
Grace kindly answered some of my burning questions.
*1. How did you begin your musical journey?*
In 2007, I purchased my very first CD - Chris
Brown's first and self-titled album; in love with his music, constantly playing
the album loudly in my bedroom at my parent's house and singing over it to the
point where I wanted to be the female version of him, and thought: I already
love dancing, let's try singing and boom, "I can actually do that", I
thought! From there I started to nurture, hone my singing, and with time write
songs.
*2.Tell me about your songwriting recording
process.*
It's either the melody comes first and I then
add words to it or the other way around - lyrics and then melodies. I'm an
observer, a listener and thinker, I translate my perspectives into paragraphs
on my phone and find rhythm in it. When I write lyrics, a range of elements
spark inspirations, concepts and directions. For this particular EP
"Polluted", about 80% of the lyrics is inspired by my analysis of the
parts human beings have played in the factors that have contributed to the
current state of the world. Sonically and melodically, usually I hear sounds -
melodic guitar lines or drum patterns and record it on a voice note right away,
ruminate it, evaluate its potential, then present it to the producer, in this
case, Erick Gerber (who has produced, mixed and mastered the entire EP) and we
then develop the music from there.
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