Brian Grainger – Open Jaws Lined With Jagged Glass Teeth
Goddamn, this guy never stops. Right after his release The Loneliness Of Empty Roads as Milieu, he puts out this 75 minute monolith on Dead Pilot, and he’s ALREADY got two more out, his “heaviest record yet” called One Bleak Try and Icepak, a Christmas EP on Bandcamp.
I guess we should be so lucky. Brian Grainger is one of the few dudes today that makes truly high quality tunes. Not the imitation shit. This is the real deal right here. And we get basically as much of it as we can handle.
Diamond Tears On Slate is some of his best work to date. Only 5 tracks but clocking in at 1 hour and 15 minutes, this is a massive slab of gorgeous static, starting out as almost the complete opposite of Empty Roads. This isn’t depressing or desolate, it’s beauty in its purest form, warm & inviting. It’s super lush, an infinite warehouse lined with golden grass & dust, drones that fill the space with closed eyes and half smiles, even the track “Open Jaws Lined With Jagged Glass Teeth” is a slow soaring euphoric trip over the mossy plains.
But it takes a turn towards the dark side on the title track, a minimal midnight creep with ghostly rumbles in the background. Then it gets murky as hell, like a swampy Italo-disco horror soundtrack slowed wayyy down and drugged out on morphine all while keeping a certain strange beauty hovering around. The final 13 minute track evens things out a bit, brings it out of the cave with waves of bubbling distortion that fade into the ocean.
Brian Grainger worked some drone voodoo into Diamond Tears, equal parts bliss & beast that mysteriously starts up again as soon as it’s over. Obviously a necessity to your neverending Grainger shelf, or the perfect one to let you in on the secret of his wondrous drones.