LOS ANGELES, July 18, 2008 - Driven by Meredith Godreau's beguiling and beautiful voice, and filled with a mix of bedroom acoustic guitar, lush instrumentation and sonic experimentation, Gregory and the Hawk's soaring full-length, Moenie and Kitchi, will be released via FatCat Records (Animal Collective, Sigur Ros, Frightened Rabbit), October 7. The enchanting pop collection marks the Brooklyn musician's label debut, following several highly popular self-released records and a slew of Internet acclaim.
With a name that conjures up a storybook quality, Gregory and the Hawk's signing to FatCat is something straight out of a fairy tale for both parties. Godreau's self-released songs were (not-so) quietly making the rounds online and had already sold 15,000 copies. That doesn't include the 17 pages of GATH cover songs others had posted on YouTube. Yet it was by mere chance FatCat and she became acquainted: a random and spellbinding performance one night in a Brooklyn bar. Cue to a month later and she was in the studio with producer Adam Pierce, of Mice Parade fame, working on her label debut.
While Gregory and the Hawk is the solo vehicle for the guitar, piano and violin playing Godreau, she is joined on this arresting album by a host of musicians who help color and add depth to the compositions with a variety of instruments (strings, horns, drums, bass), many of which were played by Pierce. Beginning with "Oats We Sow," the hook-laden song quickly sets the mood for the ensuing 11 tracks with Godreau's gentle vocals and stirring poetry front and center, floating over pounding drums. The tales of love lost and found continue in songs like "Voice Like a Bell," which unravels with a slow drumbeat and sparse keys, before electric and acoustic guitars are added to the mix as Godreau sings, "Maybe we both knew it at the time." The song culminates with sweeping effects that wouldn't sound out of place on a Sigur Ros record. The album moves from the tender and austere to the more fiery and fierce, many times within the same song. The haunting, funeral-like waltz of "Stone Wall Stone Fence," built around a simple, repetitive fingerpicked chord pattern, for example, explodes with a cacophony of clackety drums and driving keys.
Having made a name for herself throughout New York and across the Internet and now with Moenie and Kitchi, her most mature album under her wing, Gregory and the Hawk is primed to bring her songs to the masses.
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