Press Kit

Deutsche Presse Text

A Western Gothic Romance.

Sally Grayson (Black Swift) spielt eine Mischung aus eigenem Mystical Western Rock und düsteren Americana-Songs, die auch gut in einen Tarantino-Streifen passen würden.

Ihr letztes Album „The Darkness In Me“ hat sie In Tucson, Arizona gemeinsam mit Gabriel Sullivan (XIXA, Giant Sand) aufgenommen, es spielen legendäre Typen aus den Bands von Bob Dylan, Mark Lanegan und Calexico mit.

Sally Grayson “The Darkness in Me”

Sally Grayson has emerged from behind the Black Swift disguise with a new record of mystical desert rock.  Jangling guitars, pedal steel, and heat-shimmering reverb all conjure the epic distances of the American southwest and the kind of loss and longing that only the desert highways can fix. “The Darkness In Me” presents a passionate appeal to all those who have gone through the heartbreak, have shared their darkness within and are yet still on that highway looking for love and connection in the further hills of the near future. A western gothic romance filled with haunted highways, long sunsets, mysterious strangers and the impossible longing and grief that propels the ride across the starry night, the album asks the question many of us have been asking: how can so much suffering and so much love exist side by side? How can we move forwards into the hope of a new dawn in the midst of so much systemic prejudice and pain? What’s around the next bend and over the next hill? 

An American living in Germany, Sally felt the calling of the vast open spaces of the American southwest and traveled to Tucson AZ to record the songs at Dust and Stone Recording Studios where Gabriel Sullivan (XIXA, Giant Sand) produced and performed. The record was made with the help of a variety of session musicians: Winston Watson (Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Alice Cooper), Thøger Tetens Lund (Mark Lanegan, Howe Gelb), Ryan Alfred (Nick Lowe, Calexico) Nick Dehmlow (Lucille Furs), Conner Gallaher (Calexico), Brian Lopez (XIXA, Calexico), Kat Jones, Anna Illenberger (Kitz), Ralv Milberg (producer of Die Nerven, Human Abfall), and Ben Nisbet (Tucson Symphony Orchestra)

While the record is evocative of mythical visions of the west in the land of her youth, Sally has found that it is a German word that helps to explain her songs best: Sehnsucht: Sehnen- to pine, to long for, to ache for something; Sucht- to be addicted. The need for longing, and the longing to be needed, it’s a desire suggesting that the journey across the mystical desert plain is far more profound than any destination.   

Press Photos- Click on image to Download High Res Version

Tour Poster: Click on the image below to download the Tour Poster .pdf

VIDEO REELS for Promotion

We have created some Reels for you to use to share about this record or tour.
Feel free to download and share on your own social media.
Please tag SALLY GRAYSON and artists according to Video on the following platforms:

Instagram:@_sallygrayson_
Facebook @sallygrayson
Youtube @sallygrayson
TikTok @_sallygrayson_

CLICK HERE for “Intercede” feat. XIXA Videos -Please Tag- @10.years.time

CLICK HERE for “Melt into your Arms” -Please Tag- @danielmartindiaz

CLICK HERE for “Life Heist” -Please Tag- @harrylovesfilm

CLICK HERE for “The Darkness in me” Reels

Live Shows

Bio

I grew up in Southwest Michigan on a hobby farm with country music pouring from my Dad’s garage into our young ears.  As a child I took piano lessons and as a teen moved onto electric guitar…where I also discovered grunge, industrial and punk rock music to be what I loved and was drawn to- and began to HATE country music. 

After high school, I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota to study art.  There I had an emo- turned post-punk band called "Standbye."  We recorded an album with Guilt Ridden Pop Records and another one with 2024 Records.  In 2004 I moved to Germany and started “Black Swift” (post-punkified Americana n’ Roll) , which were my songs recorded with a rotating cast of musicians. With the help of my fans, I self-released 4 Black Swift albums (2 eps, 2 full-lengths) and the last one “Desert Rain” we had the honor of working together with legendary producer Sylvia Massy (Johnny Cash, Tool, Prince..ect). 

In 2016, I performed on “The Voice of Germany” and worked with Michi & Smudo from Die Fanta Vier and also Robbie Williams. 

At the beginning of 2019, I decided to start playing under my name “Sally Grayson” During the pandemic I started a project called SONIC FEVER where I wrote songs about the corona times to help get us through.  For each song I invited a musician to collaborate with, and they in turn invited the next musician (like a virus) and we remotely recorded and I released 4 songs and 4 music videos with musicians such as Elise Trouw, Dominik Kraemer (bass player from The Voice of Germany, Sing meinen Song-Band), Gemma Clark (ex-drummer from Babyshambles) and more. The songs are all quite diverse because each song had a different set of musicians, and are also quite different from my upcoming record.

In my debut Sally Grayson Album “The Darkness in me,” my teenage punk rocker who still lives inside of me is feeling a little uneasy about the fact that my Americana roots have very much come to the surface on this record.  The from-childhood-ingrained country swing in my arm as I write, coupled with traveling to America’s Southwest to work together with Gabriel Sullivan whose productions have a very strong “Western Gothic” vibe, has created a unique blend of sounds that form into an album that is certainly Dark Americana, but has enough “passionate punk rock” undertones and experimentation to feel like a perfect presentation of the music I love, and I’m thrilled to be able to present it to you!

SALLY GRAYSON LIVE

Album REVIEWS

„The Darkness In Me“ ist das eindrucksvolle Debüt der in Deutschland lebenden US-Amerikanerin Sally Grayson. Dass sie nicht erst gestern angefangen hat Musik zu machen, merkt man schon beim titelgebenden Opener. Da wird man zunächst vom Sprechgesang ihrer kehligen und äusserst kraftvollen Stimme sanft in den Song eingesogen, um sich dann beim explosiven Refrain vor wohligen Schauern entlang des Rückens nicht mehr retten zu können. Tight, nach vorne und sehr audiophil produziert, gelingt hier ein nicht nur gesanglich fulminanter Einstieg in ein grossartiges Album.

• Art Noir

“This is a very good album. I think the closest comparison musically would be to some of Cat Power’s darker stuff, with hints of Over the Rhine in their rockingest mode (some of the Films for Radio material, for instance). Lyrically, the album is about yearning. Longing for love. It’s a theme that we’ve seen elsewhere in Grayson’s work. It doesn’t exclude romantic love, but it’s not exclusively about it either. It pokes and prods at the yearning to belong, to be known. And it’s all held together well by the dark, pining sounds of the desert from which the music came.”

• Indie Vision Magazine