Gryflet

What You Don’t Need

run… like moths to a flame / for what you don’t need

About addiction in its many destructive forms — part empathy for a close friend, part real-world experience. The vocals were written at 30,000 feet over the Pacific and recorded in a Brisbane hotel room before a concierge knocked on the door.

from Left to the Unknown, 2015

Your Face on the Pillow

rest your weary head on the pillow / breathe the dust and wind for the rest

A shared hallucination across three continents: Nuno wrote the song in England seeing visions of the American desert. Frank Baker added keyboards and a closing guitar solo from Germany. jh0st added voice and lyrics traveling through dense Asian cities and empty Australian outback.

from Left to the Unknown, 2015

Bleeding Inside

bleeding inside, blue as ice / she’s waiting for the hit / it’s love… she loves to hate

A song about domestic violence — the slow bruise of it, the way it hides behind love’s vocabulary. The screamed vocals came from discovering that the voice can reach registers it didn’t know it had when the song demands it.

2015

Endless Tempest

rivers flood insistent pain / no turning back, yes I’m to blame

An apocalyptic warning about climate change, written in 2015. From the mournful evacuation-siren drone of the opening to the flood of drums and riffs, the song has a premonitory quality that only sharpened in the years after it was recorded.

from Left to the Unknown, 2015

Mobocracy Mayhem

darkness is served today / wrapped in the fear and the poison you need

Blues-preacher fury about the collapse of democracy — written in the weeks after the Brexit referendum, when the pendulum swing was just becoming visible. Nuno named it before a word was spoken about the theme. The stripped-back final version — hypnotic bass, wailing fuzz guitar — was his response to hearing the first vocal take.

2017

Cloud Walker

I can see the world from upside down / ‘cuz I walk on the clouds

Detachment as clarity. The Cloud Walker watches from above while glass walls crack and dirty cash changes hands below — a dissenter’s view from outside the comfort zone. The saxophone threads through the fuzz like a signal breaking through static.

from Cloud Walker, 2021

The Myth

gentle myth come infect my marrow / let me marry the beasts with antlers

A ritual invocation — moon, sun, earth, twin stories of sisters lost in the war between brothers. The language reaches back to something older than politics: spice trade, false prophets, humanity’s subservience dressed in purple. One of the most atmospheric of the Gryflet collaborations.

from Cloud Walker, 2021

Keep It or Not

find it in your shadows / the darkest corners / a lost shining leaf, a poet’s dagger

Betrayal from the inside — the person you trusted most turns out to be the thief. “Cracked the mirrors, the thief was you” lands like the moment the glass breaks and the reflection finally tells the truth.

from Cloud Walker, 2021