About this item

Jeffrey Alexander has always been into the cool, the weird, and the darkness. I consider him a kind of scholar of outsider and avant-garde music; over the years, hes run Secret Eye Records, been a member of Jackie O Motherfucker, Black Forest Black Sea, and managed to find a way to always remain genuinely excited about creating and performing music.

Recorded in Oakland, CA during a two day stretch, “Grow Towards the Light” is Dire Wolves 4th official full-length album (not including the fifteen or so minor releases, bootlegs, and tapes theyve put out over the years), and its the first without Lau Nau on main vocals. Taking over that role is the mystical Georgia Carbone, singing in her own invented language. Regarding the album title: you can really hear the sun pulsating through the space clouds, if you know what I mean. Jeffrey plays guitar and moog here, joined by Brian Lucas on bass, Sheila Bosco (from Faun Fables) on drums and piano, Arjun Mendiratta (Village of Spaces) on violin, and Taralie Peterson (Spires that in the Sunset Rise) on saxophone. Every Step Is Birth features a dark, plodding groove. It sounds like the soundtrack to a sinister after-party in a place you suspect might actually be purgatory.

Jeffrey tells me the album thematically tries to express the interconnectedness of all things, which makes perfect sense given even during some of the more unsettling jams and eerie melodies, this album always feels like a cohesive whole.Stylistically this is really a broad, painterly album that comes together in a beautiful, unexpected way. - Marissa Nadler, March 2019

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I was a big fan of JOMF back in the day, and have tried to see them play on more than one occasion (once at the Ruby Lounge, their visa got cancelled and support act, a little known collective called GNOD had to take the whole show on). This has the hazy, lysergic meandering that JOMF did so well but is a little bit more airy and ambient. Beautifully understated but undeniably engrossing.

TRACK LISTING

I Control The Weather
Every Step Is Birth
Discordant Angels 
Spacetime Rider
Water Bearing One
Crack In The Cosmic Axis