THE TWO EXTREMES OF ERMIN GRUD

Within this text you will find links to two tracks which you can download. They will give you both ends of the Ermin Grud spectrum. You'll find an explanation in the text and when the album is finally delivered you will see and hear that the truth is somewhere in between but will more likely go way beyond such parameters in the future!

Ermin Grud was first conceived back in 1994 by Peter Ashby and Barry Lamb. Formerly Ashby and Lamb had worked together as the main hub of Frenzid Melon in the late 70's and then in the early to mid 80's as two thirds of the insane picnic. Once all of the sandwiches had run out at the insane picnic they both slipped away unoticed and took a bit of a breather. In 1994 they got together for a few days and began conceiving and recording what they referred to as the album they have always wanted to make. Some demo's came out of those sessions and the outline of a then untitled album was conceived. 

The original track listing was Side 1: Devastation Basement* / Mystified** / Secrets and wishing stones / Ruby Jones / There's a man Side 2: Messenger

Click on "Ruby Jones" to hear the original demo version.

*Devastation Basement was a track that was written during the insane picnic period but the band had never got around to recording.

** Mystified was a Frenzid Melon track that had never really been developed.

However, life has a way of bringing about distractions and "other things" and so they forgot all about making music for a few years and the "Narrow Path" demo's were left to gather dust. But then, sometime late in 1999 or early 2000 by an amazing piece of synchronicity, Barry's name came up in an interview with Martin Newell in a magazine which happened to be read by one Tim Jones of Stone Premonitions. The author of the article was Paul Wilkinson who runs the excellent Martin Newell website.

Tim wrote to Paul generally commending him on the article and also that it was good to see Martin finally getting the recognition he deserves and good to see Barry's name there too. Going on to explain that Barry was part of Falling A a small label who in the 80's helped a lot of struggling musicians (himself & Martin Newell included). At the same time Paul had just received an email from Barry commending him on the website and wanting to touch base with Martin Newell after all these years. Paul put Barry in touch with Martin and Tim and it was receiving a batch of Rabbits Hat cd's from Tim that stirred Barry's desire to return to music. He probably would have done nothing about it as at that time he was resolute in his retirement. Except for the fact that Paul Wilkinson invited him to contribute a cover of one of Martin Newell's songs for the "Renewell" charity tribute album. Barry then called Peter Ashby and they agreed to get together and record a version of  "World strikes one". It was in the process of recording this unusual version of the track that the swirling early Pink Floydesque Hammond sound reminded them of the unfinished album. The track they recorded never made it onto "Renewell" but was offered as a bonus download for a while. However, the damage had been done as Ashby & Lamb began to revisit the unfinished album aiming to complete it when they are ready!

Some time in 2004 they thought they were about finished and already were coming up with ideas for a follow up when they received an invitation from ex- Frank Zappa sidekick Jasun Martz to contribute to his forthcoming album "The Pillory / The Battle". Given a briefing and very broad spectrum to work with, they experimented with various ideas and composed a piece called "Urban Sprawl" (click on the link to listen) in the process. This piece of music and the subsequent Jasun Martz album changed the shape of their thinking and the direction in which they were heading and so they decided to make a few further tweaks to what was now an album entitled "the narrow path". At the same time they decided to explore the domain in between the two extremes and have come up with "The lost weekend" e.p. as a taste of what is to come.

In mid 2005 it appeared that Ashby & Lamb had finally come close to being ready to unveil the long awaited album. A slight alteration of track listing; "Devastation Basement" had changed shape so much, it has just become "Devastation", the Captain Beefheart influenced "Mystified" had been dropped as it was considered out of place on this album (though it may appear on something else in the future) and the final track "Messenger" had been reshaped as "the narrow path". There was some discussion about dropping "Ruby Jones" which was also considered a little out of place, however it was decided at this time that it fitted neatly where it is in the album. The sleeve art was being worked on by Merrick Durling who has worked with Jim Henson on various projects including the film "Never ending story" and the promise of a sonic treat was in sight.

However, whilst working on some other projects Pete being the perfectionist he is began tweaking the album further and adding some mellotron which Barry had recorded for some other material and the album began to take another detour. Four new tracks were added and now "Ruby Jones" was dropped altogether. Studio time was scheduled for January 2006 for Barry to come and add some saxaphone (inspired by watching Van der Graaf generator's comeback concert at the Rotyal Festival Hall). February was blocked out for vocals and March for mixing, production and mastering. However, disaster struck as Falling A Studio 1 suffered a complete meltdown with malfunctioning computers and broken hard drives which are at present being assessed as to whether the data can be recovered.  The tracks are backed up but they are previous incarnations of the tracks so we await with baited breath. Is this going to be the ultimate in lost progressive rock treasures (there are a couple of CDs floating around of rough mixes) or is it going to be recoverable? You will have to wait and see.

UPDATE 12 October 2006

The latest versions of the tracks are not recoverable, however plan 2 will now prevail. Whilst Ermin Grud have already been working on new material for their next album, they will take the stripped down version of "the narrow path" and a CD of the almost finished version and cunningly mix and match through clever studio trickery and added instrumentation. The plan is to have two more days of recording before the end of 2006 and getting it ready for delivery to the masses in early 2007. A spokesman for the band was heard to quip that the 25th anniversary remaster will be available before the original album! One things is sure, it will be worth the wait.

Check out Ermin Grud on My Space

UPDATE 26 MARCH 2007

OK, the album is progressing very slowly (13 years so far) but the finished product really is just around the corner. It is hoped to get the recording side of the project to be finished before the Summer and the mixing, engineering and mastering in the autumn. We had toyed with it being a triple album as we had been working on some new material whilst figuring out what to do about the technology challenges we were facing. However, common sense prevailed and instead, some of the new stuff seemed to fit with and has ended up on Peter Ashby's excellent new solo album "Disturbances in the ether".