Chymera
Title: Everybody dies... Even horses
Format: CD Album
Label: Iterate
Release Date: May 2005
Discogs Entry
Press Release:
Dublin based electronic music producer Brendan Gregoriy, aka Chymera, releases his debut album on his own newly founded imprint, Iterate Recordings. Gathering together the most organic tracks in the Chymera repertoire, he has created an album with both home listening and dancefloor sensibilities in mind, while ultimately maintaining a solid flow from beginning to end. These twelve tracks blend intricate melodic patterns, subtle string arrangements, and delicate rhythms into a melting pot of downbeat, electro, and deep techno, with a hint of alternative rock and a definite nod towards Detroit. The album builds, bubbles and meanders from the opening rhythms and subtle melodies of 'Empire', through to the upbeat shuffles of 'My Love' and 'Chamber Zen', pausing on the grandiose 'Silencio' and reflective 'Moment in Time' and climaxing with the intense rhythms of 'Gone', a refrain of 'Empire', bringing the album full circle to its natural conclusion. My Own Personal Background on the Album...This album collects all the tracks I am most proud of in the last 2 years of production. I have assembled what I think is the most coherent and organic document of that era of production. Now that I am focussing my efforts on krgyztani folk music, my future endeavours promise to be radically different. Included on here are the 2 tracks featured on past deaf compilations (Melodrama and Strange day). Also, 2 other tracks, Silencio and Everybody dies... , were supposed to be released on a Kin recordings compilation, however it fell through. Now they see the light of day here. Anyone familiar with any of my livesets online will recognise some of the tracks featured.
Click here to listen to the album sampler
Tracklisting:
Empire
Terraforming
My Love
Dreamkiller
Hearts in Atlantis
Silencio
Chamber Zen
Everybody Dies... Even Horses
Moment In Time
Strange Day
Melodrama
Gone
Reviews:
The Ticket, in the Irish Times
06.05.05:
Irish electronic music producer Brendan "Chymera" Gregory has become a prolific name on the local scene via a rake of compilation credits and live supports. But while many other rising Irish producers lack the wherewithal and often confidence to take the next logical step towards a full-length album, Gregory has no such qualms about his abilities or ambitions. Everybody Dies . . . Even Horses is a wonderfully pitched, supremely assured piece of work that nips and tucks all manner of electronic shades and sounds into a highly satisfying album. Gregory is at his best when he stirs his cauldron of deep melodies, dark rhythms and intricate textures into unexpected blends. It's clear from the brooding, statuesque Moment in Time and the downtown Detroit shuffle of Chamber Zen that Gregory's future designs will also be worth examining.
Jim Carroll
Hold it Down
May 2005:
Every once and a while someone appears out of nowhere and simply knocks you off your feet. Brendan Gregory AKA Chymera has, like many before him, blown me away with the quality and intensity of his debut album. Apart from a couple of heads at D1, few in Ireland are coming close to this quality and the emotional intensity of Chymera's debut. It doesn't have it all but it has most things. A clever and broad use of genre; standard 4/4 kicks, break beats and no beats; emotionally charged melody and strings; tight production and sharp programming that you would mistake for Orbital. No wonder his live shows are upstaging the likes of Joey Beltram.
Desy Balmer
Hotpress
June 2005:
You've got to admire Cork producer Bren Gregoriy's initiative: instead of trying to hawk his work to a label, he set up his own imprint to release his debut album, with the result that his individualistic take on electronic music gets an audience. Fusing deep techno with breaks and electro, Bren adds some lo-fi rock flavours on the nocturnal slow motion beats of 'Empire', the grinding 'Chamber Zen' outdoes the electro house brigade with its raw sex appeal, while the bubbling melodies of the title track recall classic Orbital material. If the rest of the world tunes in, Chymera could easily become Ireland's first electronic producer to hit the big time.
Eight/Ten.