Murray Attaway And Friends Album Release Show With Special Guest Clay Harper

From the venue:

Murray Attaway and Friends Album Release Show with special guest Clay Harper live at Eddie's Attic!

Murray Attaway is a phantom. After years of silence, he's resurfaced with a new album, Tense Music Plays. The legendary Guadalcanal Diary lead singer and songwriter explains, "I kept meaning to do another record, but I'm easily distracted. It took me a while to focus."

With their four classic albums on Elektra Records, Guadalcanal Diary cemented their place in the pantheon of 80’s alternative bands. Rolling Stone described them as a "great second-generation Georgia band" defined by “searching earnestness”. Trouser Press opined, “"Guadalcanal Diary distinguished itself from any smart, tuneful American guitar combos” with “Attaway's songs which reflect a bizarre variety of far-flung interests … with provocatively twisted lyrics.”

For Tense Music Plays, Attaway teamed up with veteran engineer and sometimes producer Mark Williams (Southern Culture on the Skids, Joe Walsh, Pat DiNizio, Tammy Faye Bakker.) "When Mark got involved, that's when I knew it would become a real record. Mark is a consummate pro, with credits on countless albums, so I had to get myself ‘back in shape’".

Murray spent two years writing and arranging the songs or Tense Music Plays with no timeline in mind. The whole album was tracked in his home studio with Attaway playing almost all the instruments. “I wasn't targeting any particular listener during the sessions. I was thinking of a record that, if I heard it in passing, I would want to hear more."

The album features three bona fide rockers: "Breath", "Hole in the Ground" and "You Were There”. Attaway states, "Any of those three songs would have been at home on a Guadalcanal record. Robert Schmid (Swimming Pool Qs, Glenn Phillips) played drums and bass on those three and brought the stomp to them. Robert is the real thing."

Tense Music Plays has it’s slower and somber moments, though Attaway often can't resist a dramatic end, even on a ballad. "Stars Behind the Moon” is an acoustic song inspired by the myths of Delta blues music. Ana Balka brings a haunting violin piece to this song, but in the last verse, I couldn't help but bang it all up again! It's a predictable reaction with me."

Four more songs round out the album; "Never Far Away," an electric solo track about a loved one's mental decline; "Stranger," a solo acoustic song about lost identity; 'Better Days' (co-written by Layla Attaway), a wistful track about nostalgia and joy; and: ‘Old Christmas’," the oddball track. "That one was pulled from Appalachian folklore about the Epiphany (the 12 days after Christmas). It was the first song I wrote specifically for Tense Music Plays, and it's probably the most unusual. I started with a Max Fleischer cartoon sound but took some definite detours. Somehow, it rocks, too."

Tense Music Plays wanders through Murray Attaway's unique landscape, always staying close to the styles he's known for but creating a few new ones along the way. “It's always been my goal to do music that goes somewhere different, but it invariably ends up in my yard," Attaway says.

And that's a very good yard.