Graan formed spontaneously following a successful appearance under the Platform Five (Funf) at the Avantgarde festival in Schiphorst, Germany, in July 2008. Graan follow a course at a slight tangent from P5(Five)’s live and recorded outings as “Jean-Michel Jarre’s pig-ignorant younger brothers” into more doomy territory. Graan make Avant-Enochian doom and Blakean science-fiction drone bringing heavy bass guitar frequencies into the electronic mix alongside gutteral utterances, mordant guitar riffs and dystopian spoken word.
Graan is approximately half the members of Stëllä Märïs Drönë Örchësträ and one of Drift of Signifieds, creating soundscapes where new weird electronica meets deep-listening Lovecraftian delerium.
Graan have played alongside Nadja, Yellow6, The Cesarians, Jimmy & The Destroyers, Bo Ningen, Durga, Xanthous, The Nanny Maze, Now, Masterly & Farewell and others at nights including The Drones Club, Baba Yaga’s Hut, The Gates of Delirium, The Cornrocket Club, A Music Club, Club Hell, Bang The Bore, Klub VEB and The Klinker.
“If Aleister Crowley, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and John Dee formed a band then this would be the result. London’s Graan will crush your spirit with deafening static, claustrophobic low end, blasphemous ranting and monomaniacal pursuit of The Riff.“
Graan are:
Richard Fontenoy: earth moving equipment, graanulaar synthesis, digital glossolalia.
Richard Guest: dynamic undercarriage and metronomic cadence.
Alaric Pether: electric shredding, melodic intervention, recursive computation.
Al Robertson: dystopian visions, poetic licence, rollicking.
Tim Yeah: Enochian utterances from the very depths, beard and whiskers, bad attitude.
Live guests have included: Seth Cooke, drums (Hunting Lodge/Defibrillators/Masterly & Farewell/Ultrahumanitarian); Richard Thomas, cello and electronics (Now, Magnus Spectrum) and Seth Ayyaz, zorna (Dajjah, Stëllä Märïs Drönë Örchësträ).
