Plush Safe Records
Jean-Michel Basquiat might be renowned as one of New York City’s most treasured painters. But the late downtown art icon was also an accomplished musician as well.
Founded in 1979 by Basquiat and performance artist Michael Holman, the duo’s industrial/noise outfit Gray—named after Basquiat’s affinity for the medical reference book Gray’s Anatomy —harbored a machine-like found sound groove evocative of a more soulful Liquid Liquid played at half-speed and with more of an expansive instrumental base thanks to the contributions of fellow members of the original group: Nicholas Taylor, Justin Thyme and filmmaker Vincent Gallo. In their heyday, they were right in the thick of the city’s new/no-wave movement, performing at such storied venues of the time as The Mudd Club, Hurrah’s and Max’s Kansas City alongside the likes of James Chance, Talking Heads and Blondie. And when you listen to the evolution of experimental pop in the last two decades, the influence of their sound as an influence is undeniable, evident in everything from Massive Attack to TV On The Radio to Prefuse 73.
The group had convened only sporadically since the tragic passing of Basquiat of a heroin overdose at age 27, playing the artist’s memorial procession at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in 1988 and again in 1996 to play alongside actor Jeffrey Wright for a scene in the 1996 Miramax biopic Basquiat. But in 2009, surviving members Holman, Thyme and Taylor once again came together to create this long overdue testament to the legacy of this underrated act of the New York art ghetto. And though Gallo did not participate in the reunion project, the trio was joined by drummers Prairie Prince of The Tubes (Holman was once a member of that group), Dean Anthony from John Cale’s band and fellow Downtown scenester Lenny Ferraro to round things out. The end result is the first proper Gray album to ever exist, Shades Of…, which compiles a hybrid of samples culled from early Gray performances and newly recorded material to create a strange and beautiful fusion of abstract hip-hop beats, Stockhausen-like repetition and primitive illbient atmospherics to craft a most interesting aural journey into the heart of a sound with which the rest of the world is just beginning to catch up.
Anyone remotely interested in the neo-expressionist genius of Jean-Michel Basquiat will definitely want to seek out this most essential and unique anthology of music that was just as significant to the ears as the combination of acrylic and Krylon he utilized to electrify the eyes.
