Strays Don't Sleep UK Dates

Following the release of their debut album Strays Don't Sleep have announced that they will be supporting Josh Rouse on his UK tour
For details please click here

Strays Don't Sleep

Strays Don’t Sleep

Strays Don't Sleep is a kind of cinematic blend between Sinatra, Roxy Music and Curtis Mayfield through the lens of ambient urban folk music. All traffic lights and rain, glowing windows from late night high rises and sparse noise. It's a kind of sublime love letter to loneliness, hope and hopelessness. Moods so sharp they're epic. Words so personal they're universal.

Strays Don't Sleep the CD will be available with a limited edition DVD. (NTSC Region 0, 5.1 Surround Sound) Released: 26th September.

The Strays Don't Sleep

Songwriter/solo artists are strange animals. They’re typically solitary and prickly. They don’t move well in packs. It’s unusual for two such artists to find something in common magnetic enough to join forces over a common vision.

In the case of Matthew Ryan and Neilson Hubbard, this would seem a particularly difficult event. Each had already carved out a niche for himself, each was well-known and highly-praised by the critics. Steve Earle had referred to Ryan as, “one of the best songwriters I’ve seen come to Nashville,” and No Depression had claimed Hubbard’s music was, “a realm where melody, hooks and harmonies converge in a spirit of yearning and state of grace.” In addition, they come from opposite ends of the spectrum. Hubbard constructs songs like glimmering white birds – emotionally open, light and jubilant. Ryan’s songs are storm crows – heavy, world-weary and wise. Where Ryan loves The Clash and Leonard Cohen, Hubbard loves Bjork and Sinatra.

Another way to picture their differences: if they were filmmakers, Hubbard would be Truffaut and Ryan would be Scorsese. In fact, on this album, they are filmmakers – but we’ll get to that later.

So what could possibly make them want to start a band together? A song, of course.

A Blue Nile song, to be exact. “Over the Hillside.” For all their divergent tastes as artists and music fans, when they found they shared an affinity for this band, they decided it was time to come together (fight a little) and make a record.

Originally, The Strays was a side-project for each writer. An experiment to be released for fans on their individual websites.

Though they began taking turns singing one another’s songs, they soon let each song dictate who should sing it. As Ryan says of “Love Don’t Owe You Anything,” “when I sing it, it sounds like a threat. When Neilson sings it, it sounds like a promise.”

This polarity in their voices and approaches also adds considerable texture to their harmonies. A sound Hubbard laughingly describes as, “pepper and sugar.”

Tired of being underestimated, the two took the opportunity to challenge one another, compete with one another and, ultimately, bring added dimensions to each other’s work. It wasn’t always an easy process, with each artist pushing the other to sometimes uncomfortable places, and it took them nearly two years, off and on, to complete it.

As they reached new hurdles in the recording process, they brought in friends to help push things even further. A few of these stuck around to become The Strays. Brian Bequette (Garrison Starr) contributes electric guitars and loops, Billy Mercer (Ryan Adams) plays bass, and Steve Latanation (Agent Orange) plays drums. Ryan and Hubbard juggle guitars and synths as well as vocals.

The songs are arresting. It is a sound that is sophisticated and pretty and smart. It is clean and simple. The purest example of this being “Cars & History” in which, over an acoustic guitar and hovercraft groove worthy of a Wes Anderson film, Ryan sings:

“December 31st
11:59
I think I'm happy now
at least from time to time
I had to let it go
I had to let it slip
Funny how it all works out
When you've given up on it.

Rooftops and stars above
The smell of cold, dead leaves
Our skin was all in knots
You were moving under me
Cars and history turn to rust.”

While Hubbard, in a classic call and response, sings:

“Cold War is Gone
Cold War is over, Dear,
Now it’s dirty bombs,
Satellites and fear”

Born from frustration that contemporary music, too often, becomes little more than background music for commercials and from a desire to contribute a fuller, more three-dimensional and experiential interaction with the songs, Ryan and Hubbard brought a new aspect to the record.

A short film accompanies each song. Note, these are not “videos,” but films. What’s the difference? A video tries to sell you something. A video is an advertisement for a song or album or record label or cell phone. These films are brothers and sisters to the songs. They enhance the songs and add dimensions to them the same way that Ryan and Hubbard’s individual approaches enhance each other’s. They create an immersive experience.

Contributed by an impressive range of filmmakers, from noted independent director Gorman Bechard (You Are Alone) to festival favorites the Barnes Brothers (Choked) to up-and-comers like Matt Boyd, Martin Glenn, Jared Johnson and a host of young guerilla independents, the films play out like daydreams – crisp and lovely and simple. Hubbard and Ryan even directed a couple with the assistance of Nashville film student Matt Riddlehoover.

The addition of the accompanying films illustrates the comprehensive vision of Ryan and Hubbard for this album. This is more than a pop record. It’s an event. It’s a statement. It’s a dangerous tightrope walk between ambition and pretension in order to look for the truth and to look for beauty untainted by irony or posing or rock and roll fakery. It’s a denial of genre and an acceptance of inclusiveness – of audience, of band-members, of new ideas.

Most importantly, the resulting record is much more than a collaboration between two songwriters and some friends. It’s two polar artists blending into a single cohesive vision. It’s a classic rock and roll move to challenge one’s expectations from music. Tireless, hopeful, ambitious and hungry…

It’s The Strays - Don’t Sleep.