Dawson Cemetery by The Gral Brothers

Bandcamp Exclusive co-release between Desert Records and Perpetual Doom. Digital and a small run of cassette tapes only. No evil streaming services. No mainstream distribution. Hiding under your bed. If you have found your way here, beware.

The brand new GRAL Brothers album embodies the true spirit of Albuquerque's Desert Records with just the right amount of Doom in the mix.

Greg (GR) and Alex (AL) took their instruments, microphones, and handheld recording devices to Dawson, NM to record this album in a cemetery. Dawson Cemetery to be exact. Then, they took all their recordings and tracks home to Albuquerque, NM and mixed it together with the eerie field recordings they captured. More than just music was captured. Listen with caution.

Side A is the "ABOVE" ground side.
Side B is the "BELOW" ground side.

Here's what GRAL Brothers say about the experience:

"What is it about a cemetery that’s so unsettling? Silk flowers fading in the sun, cracked weathered granite, stillness and goatheads. Quietness quickly disrupted by creaking gates and birdsong. Moment fading into moment, listening to the metronome of your temple as you consider your mortal fate more and more centered. Feeling small and vulnerable on a timeline that has already seen more seasons than you ever will, and allowing that feeling to oscillate and sustain.

A heavy sadness radiates from Dawson. A lead blanket of wildflowers and stooping bluffs. A small occasional river like the veins of a blue-blood carrying ancient coal dust. A ghost town that’s survived by photos and occasional visitations to swap out silk flowers and offer a moment of solace, realizing you’re standing on top of waves of death and loss that tell a story of a state in which you’d feel alien, even though this place was home to so many. But that’s what this is, listening to a story that you’re provisionally a part of, tangibly apart from. Wondering if in another hundred years people will make this trip out of morbid curiosity and retell this story over a newer, stranger timeline.

We respond to the heaviness, the unknown, the happenchance beauty of bird calls and wrought iron gate squeals. With geophones and field recorders we amplify the voices of this place, we offer a platform to share a story that will continue to be told. Dawson comes to life again, not to descend again into the Stag Canyon Mine but instead to be in the spotlight. One place that holds so much while being so securely out of the way. Five miles north of Highway 64, through Spring Canyon where every season puts on its cyclical display of birth, death and rebirth.

A portable generator gives my amplifier life in a tunnel under the road. A tunnel with names carved in it, dating back to the 1930’s. A tunnel that served as another conduit, offering overtones and reflections from beyond life, echoing the canyon winds and elk calls. The sounds here could never be credited as just our own, instead we’re having a conversation with those who still call Dawson home. In fact, we are really the conduit, responding immediately to what this place makes us feel and following those instincts as far as they’d take us. Transporting us across timelines, relishing temporality and life while honoring death’s certainty and depth. Like stone slowly being worn away by wind and water, we’ve unearthed stories from the Northern New Mexico relic that can now be retold."
-GRAL

Side A/ ”Above”
Underbridge
Rail Canyon
Vermijo River
Rork, JD & Trujillo

Side B/ ”Below”
383
Phelps Dodge
Opera House
Stag Canyon Mine

Tracklist

1.	Underbridge	5:20

2.	Rail Canyon	3:19

3.	Vermijo River	4:53

4.	Rork, JD and Trujillo	4:19

5.	383	5:23

6.	Phelps Dodge	4:31

7.	Opera House	5:52

8.	Stag Canyon Mine	5:03

Credits

released October 31, 2021

All compositions made by Alex McMahon and Greg Williams of GRAL Brothers.

Recorded remotely in Dawson NM at Dawson Cemetery.
Processed, edited and overdubbed in Albuquerque NM by GRAL.

Mastered by Chris Leva.

License