Gemma Ray: a chameleon of varied colouring

(© Steve Gullick)

On her latest album Island Fire, the English singer-songwriter Gemma Ray has reinforced the impression that she refuses to be pigeon-holed. A chameleon of varied and imaginative colouring, she is one of the best-kept secrets of the contemporary pop scene.

Two years ago, the singer released the excellent cover album It’s a Shame About Gemma Ray, but it had no Lemonheads covers. It did have Mudhoney, Lee Hazlewood, Buddy Holly, The Gun Club, and Sonic Youth. Of the latter, you only heard the lyrics of “Drunken Butterfly”, set to the theme from the Polanski classic Rosemary’s Baby. It was daring, but turned out highly original and even creepy. And then there was also her version of the traditional “Bei mir bist du shein”, of which the Andrew Sisters’ rendition is best-known here. “But it was also an enormous hit in Nazi Germany,” she tells us from Berlin, her new home, “until they discovered the song had Yiddish roots. After that it was banned, but it remains a wonderful song to sing.” Which she does in Yiddish, German and English.
Ray’s songs are difficult to define or categorise. Even on her latest studio album Island Fire, they freely move in all different directions. That may well have something to do with her background. “My parents encouraged me to be musical: we had a piano at home, for example,” she says. “But we didn’t listen to music very often, so I was forced to dig deep within myself for inspiration. There were influences, of course: friends played Pink Floyd for me, I liked the psychedelic bands of the 1960s, and I couldn’t avoid the grunge craze while I was growing up. But as a musician, I was always more inspired by sounds that I imagined. What I create is often a reaction to the excitement of discovering a very raw sound somewhere.”

Sleeping mask
“I don’t care about the whole pop icon thing,” she says sincerely. “It is just varnish. Your work is only worth anything from the moment you hear a human element, or a tiny flaw in the recordings. Take my debut The Leader (2008): I can still sing those songs with conviction, though they were made at a time when I was very ill and barely left the house [Ray suffered from CFS - TP]. I didn’t have the energy to spend more than half a day working on a song, which produced takes I was completely unsatisfied with. But I later discovered that it is the small mistakes that make an album human and timeless. I like to keep my songs open, so that everybody can interpret them. Actually, it is seeing my world through my listeners’ eyes. My world at a definite moment, of course, because I think of a studio as a time capsule: you can record and express a particular atmosphere or period of your life in it.”

Ray is currently piecing together an instrumental album in the studio. “It is the soundtrack to an imaginary film. I spent a lot of time doing pre-production on Island Fire, but I have now limited myself again. And the result is a simpler, almost tribal tonal palette. I would like to release a special vinyl box that includes a few novelty items to increase the listeners’ comfort and allow them to relax, close their eyes, and soak up the music, so that they can invent their own film for it to accompany. I was thinking of a sleeping mask for the cover.”

Gemma Ray • 13/9, 20.00, €11/14, Botanique, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, info@botanique.be, www.botanique.be