Grayarea return with the followup to Gravity, which includes a remix from them and a remix from Hybrid, have they both created monsters?
Grayarea – Gravity (Hope Recordings)
When something is on fire, you normally put the fire out with an extinguisher or water but Grayarea have been on fire (which you simply cannot put out) for most of 2004 with their amazing output, their remixes of “I’m Awake”, “Vodka Cranberries”, “Wonder” and others were massive but their biggest release this year was the single featuring Erik Shepard on a track called “Gravity”, which got a limited release of 1,000 records. Hope Recordings were never ones to sit around and idle, so they smartly decided to get a Grayarea remix and release another 12” but something was missing from perfection and since Grayarea did a mix of Hybrid’s “I’m Awake”, Hybrid decided to return the favor by remixing Gravity. So this release includes one of the biggest breakbeat groups in Grayarea and the quality output of the Welsh duo of Mike Truman and Chris Healings known as Hybrid. One last thing, Hybrid named their remix after the Welsh Town with a long name called“Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”. It means “St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave”.
Grayarea feat. Erik Shepard – Gravity (Hope Recordings)
A1 – Gravity (Grayarea’s Albatross Mix) B1 – Gravity (Hybrid’s Love From Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Remix)
A1 – Grayarea feat Erik Sheppard – Gravity (Grayarea’s Albatross Mix)
The song starts with Erik Shepard chanting “Ahhhhh”, which eventually starts to fade into the background and leaves within the first minute. The bassline rolls in, it has an almost addictive quality to it and it goes in a dark direction. The song is currently in 2nd gear and it will quickly hit top gear in short order. The dark riff moves into the song, it has such a dirty driving progressive element to it. The song then starts to build into the beast that it is, some more dirty riffs move in, making the song even darker and more driving. The vocal “Ahhh” comes back in, right after the other riffs, with some cool sound effects that decide to tag along. Finally the song gets going, the song is already in 5th gear, so Erik Shepard sings the first verse and as he gets going with it, the fact that this song is completely off the hook hits you hard in the face. The vocal adds to the song, the way that vocals should be done, Sheppard adds a very powerful vocal and that coupled with the forceful bassline and dirty as heck riffs makes this track a stormer. Erik Shepard comes back and starts to repeat the sentence “too far gone”, then he quickly moves into verse two and you are already hooked on this monster and you are completely involved in the music. This is what music should be, songs that take you completely away from things and take you on a journey. After the second verse is finished, the “too far gone” vocal is repeated again. What a nasty driving progressive monster this has become and we are only a few minutes into the track. Almost six minutes into this song, it breaks down, where the bassline disappears and the melody drives the song, it is quite beautiful, this is calming you down after the nasty dark journey in the first few minutes. Eventually the song goes back to like before, except the bassline is not as dirty as it was beforehand. The song takes off some of the steam near the end and Grayarea are content to calm the song down a bit and let it ride out. I’m completely speechless now because this song is so amazing and so powerful, I wonder what would happen when A list deejays like Digweed, Sander Kleinenberg or Nick Warren get a hold of this, look out!
B1 – Gravity (Hybrid’s Love From Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Remix)
The first thing that hits you about this track, is the uniqueness of the remix name and I wonder what would happen if someone like Pete Tong tried to say this name. This goes in more of the direction of Morning Sci-Fi. This song starts with some spooky progressive beats, a dark melody joins in quickly and some spaced out sound effects are thrown in and out for good measure. The same vocal “Ahhhh” is used here but it is altered at times, you almost wonder if it is the same vocal. As the song builds, you get the “Morning Sci-Fi” feeling, it sounds similar in certain ways. Verse 1 begins as the song continues to build and then you hear another of the Hybrid trademarks, no not the rolling bassline, that will come later but now you hear orchestral violins in the background, think of “Finished Symphony”. As the song progresses, eventually the Hybrid trademark rolling bassline comes in (it is not as evident as their early works but you know this is Hybrid). The remix relies more on the melody to drive it, rather than Side A that used a massive bassline with some dirty riffs. This uses some spooky effects as it moves on and some of the sound effects in the background now are exactly similar to the ones that they used in “Morning Sci-Fi”. The song stays in this mold for a little while and then the orchestral part comes back in and about twenty seconds later, the vocal comes back and goes into another verse. The song works well like this and continues on for some time and then near the breakdown, Hybrid throw in a beautiful guitar riff and it adds to the song. The song eventually calms down a bit and then heads for the exit. Another true monster of a tune
Conclusion:
Grayarea have hit the mother load here with this remix, it will be huge, when it is finally released in late August 2004, LOOK OUT!. The Grayarea Albatross mix is the better of the two mixes, but they are both so good, and it will be hard to choose one to play over the other. The first mix smacks you and takes you on a dark journey into driving progressive and it is an understatement to label this amazing, I have no real word that I can use to adequately describe this beauty. Hybrid’s mix goes down a dark breakbeat path with some fine orchestral parts and a great guitar riff; this totally blows my mind as well. It is rare that a vinyl release has two absolute stormers on it but this is the case. These two songs are completely off the hook and so far they are the tunes of summer 2004, wait till this hits in late August, it will tear some dance floors apart, if they have not been already. If this does not break Grayarea into the upper echelon of EDM artists, then I don’t know what will.
Out in late August 2004
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