Sister Ray Davies
'Holy Island', the new concept album from Sister Ray Davies, must almost certainly be the first instance of a duo from Muscle Shoals, Alabama writing an entire concept album about Lindisfarne in the North Sea. You suspect fellow Americans might struggle to recognise a tiny island north of Berwick-upon-Tweed that was once home to Benedictine monks during medieval times and, thinking about it, they may not know who Ray Davies is either.
“Yeah, it's tough to gauge who gets it when we say it over here,” admits Adam Morrow, vocalist and multiinstrumentalist. “Obviously the Velvet Underground thing alludes to that Brian Eno quote [‘The first Velvet Underground album only sold 30,000 copies but everyone who bought one started a band’]. If you're talking to musicians, they get it! But the Ray Davies part? A lot of the time they get it but The Kinks are a funny one here. Americans might recognise the riffs but I don't know if they always connect the dots. So it’s definitely a band name for record collectors and nerds”.
Morrow has formed the group with Jamie Sego, who runs the Portside Sound studio, which sits where the legendary Muscles Shoals studio used to be. So how come two lads from the Deep South had the idea to write about St. Aidan and the monks of Holy Island who inhabited the monastery during the Dark Ages? “I was on tour in the UK with Lee Baines + The Glory Fires,” says Morrow, who plays lap steel guitar on Baines’ 2022 album 'Old Time Folks'. “We played the night before in Newcastle, and the next day on the drive up to Glasgow, we chose to drive along the coast. On the way I saw this stone-looking building out across the water. We figured out we could take this causeway if the tide was low enough, and we timed it right. The next thing we’re taking the van across the causeway.”
Morrow was taken aback by the ruins on the tiny island. “I don’t want to sound too new agey,” he says, “but it had a vibe. It had an energy to it that felt meaningful and profound. It was just a beautiful spring day, and we had this great experience, got back in the van, and drove to Glasgow.” That experience stuck with the musician, and he began researching the island’s history, which has fuelled the duo’s expansive, shoegazey debut. Morrow says he and Sego have always been fans of concept records, and he personally learned about the, ahem, concept of concept records, from the masters.
“Pink Floyd was like a lightning bolt to my brain when I was a teenager,” he says, “and I already loved 'The Dark Side Of The Moon'. I very distinctly remember watching the Classic Albums series on that album, which breaks down the tracks. And there was a clip that showed them in the studio, and they were just laying it all out: ‘This is going to be the 'Time' song; This is going to be the 'Money' song.’ And I’m like: ‘Oh my God, you can make music that way? That's incredible.”
- Jeremy Allen
PROG FILE
Lineup: Adam Morrow (vocals, guitar, bass, programming) Jamie Sego (guitar, bass, programming)
Sounds like: Euphoric and overdriven guitar music with anglophilic undertones (and overtones).
Current release: 'Holy Island' (Sonic Cathedral)