Dave Graney and Clare Moore, (strangely)(emotional).
15 track album (includes two versions of one song.
All instruments played by Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
Dave Graney, guitars, bass, autoharp, harmonica, vocals.
Clare Moore, drums, vibes, keys, percussion, backing vocals.
Joined by Shane Reilly (Lost Ragas) pedal steel on the opening track, Dave Wray (aka Frank Bennett) on tenor and soprano sax for three songs, Genevieve Fry on harp on one song, Will Hindmarsh (aka Twinkledigitz) and Emily Jarrett on backing vocals on two songs and Catherine McQuade, bass and mixing on another.
Mastered by beats / hip hop producer and drummer Plutonic Lab who had collaborated with Dave Graney on the homage track GRACE TAME IS PRESIDENT in 2022.
Dave Graney and Clare Moore have in recent years been swinging between song focused studio albums (like this one) and more band focused rock albums, (like their previous set In A Mistly).
(strangely)(emotional) is so carefully titled because that’s the age we live in. A person has to be sure and careful of their words. It’s a sensitive area, the world, in 2024. Even though it is also brutal , viral and violent all at once. (The ground we walk upon is contested and just holding together with surface tension). So the words are quarantined from each other, in parentheses so as not to be qualifying or commenting on the other.
The sounds on the album come from vintage drum machines, electric (six and twelve string) and acoustic (nylon and steel string) guitars, pedal steel, harp, harmonica, electric piano, drums, vibes, marimba, mellotron and tenor and soprano sax.
The words are rich, playful and very personal. Dave Graney is a proud Creative Creep.
(strangely)(emotional) comes after a year where Graney and Moore toured the country to joy and acclaim with their 90s band Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes. This album was cooking away in the background all the while.
It’s a Dave Graney and Clare Moore album. They’ve always done their own thing. This time, it’s (strangely)(emotional)
Includes unlimited streaming of Dave Graney and Clare Moore (strangely)(emotional)
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I’ve been lookin’ for an old friend- any old friend
I need to knowwho I was, maybe that’s who I am?
my old friends are old
older than I feel I am
soft and silly
am I too?
madly, softly, hardly
maddening, softening, hardening
broke into an old house
hey it’s an old school house now!
wandering through the rooms, opening drawers
expecting to find something behind one of the doors
lookin’ through some old window
electric cables jumping about
madly, softly, hardly
when I was growin’ out of my body and into my mind – should I have stopped at some point?
did I?
you know how you see a big flock of birds – starlings- flying in an enormous formation
turning and moving as one, suddenly here then swooping, gathering like a wave, a rush , but there’s no shore, no floor
maybe we’re like that?
in time?
loose and alive like that and we scare ourselves and take flight and then hold tight in a dive but it felt different and we look over at ourselves , a part of ourselves, a shape we once had, in time, yes – that was us – but…
madly, softly, hardly
maddening, softening, hardening
and there are some who can arrange and employ words in shape and sound that dazzles and lived, beside us, for a while, then all the pieces fall away and the words fail.
There are others that command those words, like those flocks of birds
playing, living so well they build cities and high walls and other worlds, turning this way and that, page after page, tome after tome, brick by brick, stone by stone
madly, softly, hardly
maddening, softening, hardening
you’ve been there!
you’ve ridden that flow, tapped that stream, the lode, the vein
why are you digging down into the mud to get to that old school house? That day when you were composed? Sure! At that party at 2am – making toast and talking with soft power at cruising speed? But you were raw and a knock at the door stopped that scene and it’s never happened again.
It’s like that corner behind the door where you used to hang your coats. In that house you lived in, in that city you lived in for a while in that other country, that really great winter that closed in around you and it was so quiety, snow on the street, on the wind. TRhere was no wind! It was strangely warm and there was a series of forbidden films on the television. The television!
Of course you want to go back. But so many elements were at play.
So many notes in that chord.
What note was at the bottom, and what sweetened it at the top?
So many elements. And the tempo of the times, was it set to a train or a plane? Or a pay checque? And the banks closed.
From Melbourne, Australia.
Dave Graney and Clare Moore were once in the Moodists, singer and drummer
respectively.Then there was the Coral Snakes and and now Dave Graney and the mistLY.
Stu Thomas on bass since 2004 and Stuart Perera on guitar since 1998...more
Amos Garrett on guitar and vocals. He does both so very well. A vintage player - like me - but I only discovered him recently. Stellar sounds. dave graney
supported by 10 fans who also own “Madly, Softly, Hardly”
I first heard the artist on Tripple RRR Melbourne, while listening in, a woolshed, on Maungatautiri Mountain, a very lovely recording, I highly recommend this to all Whyte Rushan
Winter McQuinn mixes soft rock and psychedelic folk for a sound reminiscent of classic pop purveyors like Cut Worms and the Lemon Twigs. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 16, 2024
