You wouldn't know it from the scalding, white-hot cocoon of feedback and tuneful thrust that encompassed virtually every recorded note laid down by Seattle's
New Sweet Breath, but lurking in the midst of that gloriously, amp-ridden raucous was frontman
Graig Markel, who when separated from his cohorts (bassist Nicholas Rock and skinsman Jeff Hazel) was adept at composing some of the most contemplative and transporting singer-songwriter soundscapes that have ever met this set of ears. Really, the guy's that good, and all the proof you need lies in the grooves of his initial volley of solo records (
Verses on Venus, Hard Grammar, among others) and for that matter this single, which appears on
-ismist Records, a label that Graig goes back a long way with. The lucid and sheik, neo-cosmopolitan sumptuousness of "July" and "Sugar in Bloom" find Markel crossing into thresholds that NSB never envisioned, and I like to think serve as an appetizer to those aforementioned full-lengths. In the years following this humble 45, he turned his muse to the electronica endowed
Animals at Night, and even more recently our man is back with some brand new solo jams for you to devour over at his
Soundcloud page.
A. July
B. Sugar in Bloom
Hear
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