Gorilla vs Bear Premieres New Music by Grace Sings Sludge

After 4 home-recording albums, Grace Cooper enters the studio for a new Grace Sings Sludge album, Christ Mocked and the end of a relationship.

Recorded at El Studio by Phil Manley (Life Coach / Trans Am), mixed and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control) and released by Empty Cellar Records - home to Coopers' old band The Sandwitches - the album will be accompanied by a 32-page book of Coopers' illustrations and lyrics.

There has always been a dreamy American gothic sensibility to Coopers' sound, and on Christ Mocked she continues to lean into this mood and presents us with a collection of deeply felt ballads and stories that have as much in common with Shirley Jackson as they do Karen Dalton or anything we've heard from her before.

Taking the album to the studio has added some polish to Grace Sings Sludge but as these songs and stories intertwine, it's clear that Cooper is evolving her sound forward in strange and unexpected ways - even putting her own spin on audio drama with The Hackers and Borderlands. This is very much the sound of an artist experimenting and pushing expectations. Beneath the surface of these songs is a lovely mystery; a whelm in the gloom; a hope and a resilience that glow and thrive in the bottomless sea.

Grace Cooper plays all instruments on Christ Mocked, except drums and piano on "Horror for People That Don't Like Horror" played by Nic Russo/Dick Stusso.

- Glenn McQuaid (Tales From Beyond the Pale)

Watch the official music video for "Falling in love with him again was the most exciting time of my life" here:

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