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<\/p>\nCary Grace has followed a winding and unlikely path to arrive at her current situation. Born and raised in the American south, she’s currently living the the United Kingdom. And though her musical career started out in the Nashville singer-songwriter scene, today she makes progressive rock albums. Grace also owns and operates Wiard, a boutique synthesizer maker. Her most recent release\u2014a 12\u201d vinyl pressing\u2014features a cover of Pink Floyd’s \u201cFat Old Sun,\u201d done in an arrangement that pays homage to the group’s live performances of the 1970 tune.<\/p>\n
As a child in South Carolina, Grace would dig through her father’s vinyl records. \u201cLater in his life, he mostly listened to classical music,\u201d she says, \u201cand had a huge collection of classical CDs. So all the old rock records didn’t really get listened to very much.\u201d She recalls time spent with those records as her first musical contact with artists including the Doors, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Traffic and Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n
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It was the music of Simon\u2013as well as a slightly later discovery, Bob Dylan\u2013that sparked Grace’s interest in songwriting. \u201cI was always really into words, writing and poetry,\u201d Grace recalls. \u201cI loved<\/i> language. And listening to those two people, in particular, and realizing what you could do in the context of a song with<\/i> language was what initially drew me to songwriting.\u201d She recalls saying to herself around age 15, \u201cWell, I could do that. I could write songs.\u201d She taught herself some chords on guitar and began to write.<\/p>\n
Grace would document her early songwriting efforts using a decidedly low-tech method. \u201cThe first overdubs I did were with two cassette boomboxes,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d play something back on one and add another track, so to speak, by recording on the other one. Of course, it sounded terrible, but that was my first multi-tracking.\u201d When she was about 8 years old, her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee where her father had a job in audio tech for the Nashville Network country music cable channel. She soon got a four-track cassette deck of her own. \u201cI learned some stuff from my dad, like how to make my own cables, and how to solder,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was always a good person to have around when I’d ask, ‘Hey. How do I do this?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Her interest in keyboards would come much later. \u201cI’m not really a keyboard player,\u201d Grace laughs. \u201cI’m more of a synth player.\u201d To this day, her use of keyboard instruments lies primarily within the context of monophonic synthesis. \u201cWhat interests me more is using a monosynth as a lead instrument, and creating interesting sounds with modulars,\u201d she explains. I\u2019m more into the sound creation and expression. I’m no virtuoso musician by any means.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Grace reached adulthood, she got a job with CMT, Country Music Television. \u201cI was right in the middle of all the country-pop stuff,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cIt’s not music that appeals to me, though I love old country, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Developing a musical identity of her own, Grace didn’t feel that she fit anywhere into the Nashville scene. But she did make and release an album there. \u201cI worked on those songs on Book of Rhymes<\/i> [2004] over years and years and years,\u201d she says. Completing the album took a decade. \u201cI was doing it all myself,\u201d she says. Country star Vince Gill plays mandolin on two cuts. \u201cAlmost everyone who played on it was a session player who I had to pay,\u201d Grace explains. \u201cI had my own studios, but it all had to come from me. I had to plan every detail of it, and that\u2019s hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
She believes that Book of Rhymes<\/i> suffers from having been recorded piecemeal and through overdubs. \u201cThe interaction that you can have with other musicians can often create something much bigger than you could create on your own,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause you have other influences and other angles; that\u2019s something that album doesn\u2019t have.\u201d She discovered that she wanted to collaborate with like-minded musicians, \u201cpeople who would just enjoy creating the music with me. And,\u201d she says, \u201cI didn\u2019t really find that in Nashville.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace moved to the UK in 2005. \u201cI just decided I was ready for a change,\u201d she says. \u201cI never really got along with Nashville very well, and you know, if you\u2019re going to go somewhere else, why not move countries?\u201d Today she holds dual citizenship.<\/p>\n
Not long after settling in England, Grace put together a band, but admits that \u201cit didn’t do particularly well, and kind of dispersed.\u201d But soon she met Andy Budge. \u201cHe has been playing on virtually everything I’ve released since I’ve been here,\u201d she says. \u201cAndy’s just a remarkable bass player; he plays guitar as well. We have a lot of musical tastes in common, and enough differences to make it a good kind of collaborative effort.\u201d Grace says that she and Budge have been the \u201ccore axis around which everything rotates\u201d in regard to her music.<\/p>\n
Grace’s first recorded effort with Budge was the 2009 double-album Perpetual Motion<\/i>; the album also features multi-instrumentalist John Garden, who today tours with Alison Moyet. Another frequent collaborator is drummer David Payne; guitarist Steffi Sharpstrings has guested on a number of Grace’s album projects and selected live dates.<\/p>\n
Perpetual Motion<\/i> received positive notices in Progarchives.com, and a German review observed that [translated] \u201cit takes time to listen to this impressive work, but it is worth it for the many analogue sounds, the hypnotic atmosphere and long psychedelic instrumental sections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace recalls the Perpetual Motion<\/i> sessions as \u201can eye-opening experience,\u201d one that whetted her appetite for further long-form progressive rock excursions. To date she has released seven albums and three singles via Bandcamp; several have also received release on physical media, many featuring hand-printed sleeves with design and artwork by Grace herself.<\/p>\n
In a rare detour from making music under her own name, in 2010 the ever-busy Grace took part in a transatlantic collaboration with an American DJ, released as Monday Machines<\/i>. \u201cI played almost everything on there, apart from some guitar, jackhammers and construction noise,\u201d she recalls with a laugh. \u201cI still quite like that album.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace’s exposure to the world of modular synthesis came rather late in her career. \u201cThe first time I ever got to really play with the things was when I came over to England,\u201d she says. But she was quickly hooked. \u201cThrough music connections, and because of having a self-taught technical background, I\u2019ve ended up building them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hosted a radio program, \u201cAirtight Garage,\u201d and through that she met Grant Richter, founder of the Wiard Synthesizer Company. \u201cAfter playing his band’s music on my show, I got in touch with him.\u201d She learned that Richter was facing the potential shutdown of his company because health problems prevented him from doing the hand-building of the modular units.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was looking for somebody who would be a worthy person to take it on, and at the time I was kind of looking for something else to do,\u201d says Grace. In 2012 she bought the rights to manufacture Wiard gear, calling her company Wessex Analogue. Today Grace does all of the work herself in a small yet well-appointed electronics workshop of her own.<\/p>\n