Graham Reynolds
Newly signed to Fire Records, Graham Reynolds is an acclaimed composer venturing on his first ever overseas tour with a new EP and a remarkable album to follow.
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Acclaimed composer and Austin’s favourite ’72-vintage Neil Young lookalike goes solo!
Biography
Graham Reynolds is an Austin legend. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, grew up in America’s northeast, and then he relocated to Texas and became part of the furniture as half of the Golden Hornet, man handling punk’s DIY ethic into classical music. He tumbled into movie soundtracks (A Scanner Darkly, etc), theatre pieces, and became renowned for an annual re-imagining of festivities with the live extravaganza Graham Reynolds Ruins The Holidays.
Having become a regular audio foil for Richard Linklater’s movies, highlights of which include the acclaimed score for the closing chapter of the Before triptych Before Midnight.
The quintessential modern composer
THE INDEPENDENT
New Release
In the hustle and hub bub of SXSW, the annual hometown highlight of Graham’s regular live shows have become renowned for long queues and lasting memories – last year’s at counter-culture flagship Levitation featured an Orchestra Drum and water cooler bottles, making a mind blowing percussive crescendo for the packed crowd.
Since then, Graham has re-focussed his talents yet again, beginning with an EP, ‘Music For Prophet Parts 1-4’ that’s the perfect pre into what’s promised to be a spectacular debut solo album later in 2024.
Graham: “‘Prophet Harmonic’ provides the backbone of the album and the EP’s four parts are variations on that theme, taking this one track and expanding the ideas around it. There’s the original take featuring Peter Talisman, a version that focuses on a larger ensemble with strings, and a vocal version featuring (Fire’s own) Marta Del Grandi – I saw her at SXSW, we played the same stage. I sent her the tracks and gave her free reign to do as she wanted. I was really excited by what she did.”
The EP also includes a “couple of abstractions’, while the album heads in new directions, traversing territory that brings together the inspiration and experiences from many parts of Graham’s effervescing past.
So, why a solo career a mere 20 years into proceedings?
“Anything that’s new is exciting to me. I like doing something that I haven’t done before. I like getting pushed in different directions. I’ve made short pieces before with an almost pop song structure but that’s not typical for me. I haven’t done a lot of solo performing either; it’s so simple to just stay home and do scores. But, it’s exciting to try different things, to see if this solo set actually works and what the response is. I’m very curious, to see what happens.”
Never one to take the easy route, Graham Reynolds adds a new dynamism to what we hear. The grandeur of his soundtrack work permeates this solo sojourn as it swings and swaggers between the brooding hues of Peter Talisman’s renowned game soundtrack electronica and the soulful drama of Marta Del Grandi, and way out beyond. Condensing it into a suitcase for live dates will be a Darwinian escapade, it’s unpacking to an expectant audience an experience to never forget.
Graham Reynolds continues his sortie into solo territory with new single ‘An Endless Tower’, a collaboration with English folk duo Peter Talisman; a hybrid of Eno-ambience and Reynolds’ inspired penchant for drama; the tower is an over-arching monolith from a dreamy road movie where Charles Mingus trades melodies with Floating Points.
