Gral Brothers Premiere “383”; Dawson Cemetery Out on Halloween
I’m not going to be the one to tell you that it doesn’t matter that Albuquerque, New Mexico, duo Gral Brothers — also stylized as GRAL Brothers in honor of combining the first names of component members Greg Williams and Alex McMahon — recorded Dawson Cemetery at least partially in the real-world locale the name of which it bears as its title. Obviously they thought it mattered enough to drag gear into the place and do the thing, and that in itself is value. What I will say is that as you listen to the premiere of “383” below ahead of the download-and-limited-tape-only release’s Halloween arrival, if you’re not actually leaning on some gravestone smoking a clove cigarette like you were when you were 16, it still works.
Ambient experimentalist drone is never going to be everybody’s bag. Nor should it be. It’s not meant to be. If you can put yourself in the right headspace for this, though, the rewards are right there in the listening experience. Like the prior-streamed opener “Underbridge,” “383” is evocative and desolate. The song takes its title from the number of people killed in mine explosions between 1913 and 1923 who are buried there, and what was an actual town surrounding has been gone since the middle of the last century, so yes, with just the cemetery remaining, desolation should be the thematic base from which Gral Brothers are drawing. The site is listed among New Mexico’s “most haunted” — Pennsylvania imprint Perpetual Doom, which is co-releasing Dawson Cemetery with Desert Records, issues a warning that the tapes are as well — and that feel certainly carries over to the wistfulness of the music itself.
But the point here is to go exploring with it and see where it takes you. So do that.
Copious background follows, courtesy of Desert Records.
Enjoy:
Gral Brothers, “383” track premiere
GRAL Brothers ‘Dawson Cemetery’
This is a co-release with Perpetual Doom.
Only available on Bandcamp – digital and cassette tape only.
No streaming services. No distribution.
If you have found your way here, you are on the right path as a true music fan.
https://thegralbrothers.bandcamp.com/album/dawson-cemetery
https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/album/dawson-cemetery
HOW COOL IS THIS?!
The brand new GRAL Brothers album is the true spirit of Desert Records.
Greg (GR) and Alex (AL) took their instruments, microphones, and handheld recording devices to Dawson, NM to record this album in a cemetery.
Dawson Cemetery, in fact.
Then, they took all their recordings and tracks home to Albuquerque, NM and mixed it together with the eerie field recordings they captured.
They got more than just music…listen and hear for yourself.
Side A is the “above” ground side.
Side B is the “below” ground side.
What is it about a cemetery that’s so unsettling? Silk flowers fading in the sun, cracked weathered granite, stillness and goatheads. Quietness quickly disrupted by creaking gates and birdsong. Moment fading into moment, listening to the metronome of your temple as you consider your mortal fate more and more centered. Feeling small and vulnerable on a timeline that has already seen more seasons than you ever will, and allowing that feeling to oscillate and sustain.
A heavy sadness radiates from Dawson. A lead blanket of wildflowers and stooping bluffs. A small occasional river like the veins of a blue-blood carrying ancient coal dust. A ghost town that’s survived by photos and occasional visitations to swap out silk flowers and offer a moment of solace, realizing you’re standing on top of waves of death and loss that tell a story of a state in which you’d feel alien, even though this place was home to so many. But that’s what this is, listening to a story that you’re provisionally a part of, tangibly apart from. Wondering if in another hundred years people will make this trip out of morbid curiosity and retell this story over a newer, stranger timeline.
We respond to the heaviness, the unknown, the happenchance beauty of bird calls and wrought iron gate squeals. With geophones and field recorders we amplify the voices of this place, we offer a platform to share a story that will continue to be told. Dawson comes to life again, not to descend again into the Stag Canyon Mine but instead to be in the spotlight. One place that holds so much while being so securely out of the way. Five miles north of Highway 64, through Spring Canyon where every season puts on its cyclical display of birth, death and rebirth.
A portable generator gives my amplifier life in a tunnel under the road. A tunnel with names carved in it, dating back to the 1930’s. A tunnel that served as another conduit, offering overtones and reflections from beyond life, echoing the canyon winds and elk calls. The sounds here could never be credited as just our own, instead we’re having a conversation with those who still call Dawson home. In fact, we are really the conduit, responding immediately to what this place makes us feel and following those instincts as far as they’d take us. Transporting us across timelines, relishing temporality and life while honoring death’s certainty and depth. Like stone slowly being worn away by wind and water, we’ve unearthed stories from the Northern New Mexico relic that can now be retold.
-GRAL
Dawson Cemetary
Side A/”Above”
Underbridge
Rail Canyon
Vermijo River
Rork, JD & Trujillo
Side B/”Below”
383
Phelps Dodge
Opera House
Stag Canyon Mine
Album Credits:
All compositions made by Alex McMahon and Greg Williams of GRAL Brothers.
Recorded remotely in Dawson NM at Dawson Cemetery.
Processed, edited and overdubbed in Albuquerque NM by GRAL.
Mastered by Chris Leva.
https://facebook.com/gralbrothersmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/gralbrothersmusic/
https://thegralbrothers.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/desertrecordslabel/
https://desertrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://desertrecords.bigcartel.com/
https://www.instagram.com/perpetualdoom/
https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/
http://www.perpetualdoom.com/
