On MIRROR WORLD, the new album by Gil De Ray
The kick drum propels Gil De Ray’s sparkling synths
And the sulky sneer of his vocals, as he myths his muse
Jimmy Morgan in this ballad single and slow L.A. noir.
Mirror World opening the secret doors De Ray phases
As the mundane dunce-dance meets magic
And the dusk light brims, full of stars.
‘Fuck a job/Stay in Bed/Read those books
You haven’t read..Politicians/Celebrities/
Click-bait to limit your fantasies.. and so attend
To hear this song Prophet ballad the loss of society’s soul
To chart scars. For there is always an agenda within
Gil’s sly psychedelic; lyrics as lesson for the actual way
Things should be. For this song details the true
Tuning out, not just from the job, but from this unfriendly
Dimension, as his effortless pop broils and simmers
And an internal summer of love sets you free.
Like all of his songs, the craft is so strong you could ride it,
On top of the ocean, or all the way towards stars.
De Ray’s self-directed video shows this other view,
This aesthetic made for the aether,
As Jimmy Morgan falls, stalls and encounters
Through Gil’s hand-held swooping frame,
Earth as Mars. That second planet within
The corrupted one we inhabit. The mirror now,
In reflecting and refracting us, tilts and jars.
As MONEY IS THE VIRUS’s woeful tap ‘Clots the heart
of the city.. The cash cow chaos matrix’ is the kind
Of cage that’s all bars. The understated music
Allows the clarity of the message. The song is tight,
Yet expansive as its pulse persuades all the while.
‘Money is a crisis/A debt to buy your silence,’
He sings and the truth chorales in you. Suddenly,
Strings are soaring as you solo within to your style.
Gil De Ray sings to you, you are walking with him
Through the ghetto, all the way from the grotto
That first sucked you in as a child. En route to the shops,
To the pub, or club, market, mountain; the feel
Is American fused European and carved from a Celt,
The will’s wild. As evidenced by track three,
THE PRICE IS PSYCHOLOGICAL; jazz meets soul
As if Grant Green met Marvin. It is Django slowed
By Santana, as the poetics of place sees each card
Falling and show us all what’s been dealt.
‘My soul a secret orchestra/Ram-dassing to myself/
Becoming nobody with every breath I take/
I am becoming something else.’ Each song’s
A hummed hymn to a numbed congregation,
And so De Ray rouses with a laid back groove
To transform your lethargy into an elegy
For transgression. These songs are soul soundtracks
As the buzz of a deeper belief starts to swarm.
BLOODCLOT scars and skas as its reggae strut carries,
The eternal message as the soothsayer sings,
‘If you could see half the bullets you don’t know
you’ve dodged,’ I hear Matt Johnson,
With the same level of lyric, and the same
Tortured truth; this Gil brings. These, then are the new
Protest songs. And this is how you modernize Dylan,
With De Ray’s slow-sung woeful wisdom, you can truly
Separate from the throng.
GHOSTS OF STARS’ guitar chord is a six string
Cosmos cleanser. It washes confusion like grime
From the skin in free space. The listener floats,
Borne aloft by the lightness and by the beats
That begat you and by the spirits who come to save
Us all, without trace. You can lose yourself easily,
But those stars will still find you.
What their ghosts gain is the imprint of all
That you are and can be. These are some of the special
Secrets in songs. These are the myths of their message.
Songs shine through their shaping, and as they
Speak of the dark we still see.
CLOSE YOUR EYES follows us, its stumbling synth
Sets the rhythm. De Ray white-raps, pronouncing,
With a poet’s take on that style. He also preaches,
Far reaching for you and fear’s kingdom. ‘Its okay
to be frightened,’ he sings. And his two note phrases
Protect us. Pure pop as potion, motioning us
To align with the new moves and stance
In this doven-like dance, small explosions,
From which we recover, re-piecing ourselves
Outside time. For Mirror World is just that.
The Twilight Zone found its morning. And it is one
In which dusk and dawning form their own magic mix.
With this one man band as guiding hand, guru,
Gourmet, selecting sensations from both the lesssons
In light and their tricks. FELT PRESENCE is synth as braille
For the seeing. You can feel and peel the dimension
That still suffers us. Even Plato’s on hand, lending words
To the chorus as what ancient Gods such as Horus
Can hope to gain from our trust. Which is unnaturally,
To transcend and thus ascend, should we wish it,
By pushing past binding structure the future is loose.
Pages fly. And we are the book and we are the sign
And the sigil, as babble and bible are but the crumbling
Shroud when we die. HOSTAGES seals the deal.
Its near muezzin call starts seduction.
But then De Ray allows himself a Barry White style
Affirmation, before the song evolves and refines.
‘I want to enrapture you/I want to capture you/
Make you more like me/Make you think like me/
And for a moment, we, glistening as we listen
May believe it is a duplicitous hill we have climbed.
But only then do we see that this final song is from
The singing stars, truly and that this is a quantum
Quandary which Gil feels free to explore.
We have the other options ahead, if not here
Than new regions, where the multiverse hold us hostage
And where wits refashioned, we can finally access
Huxley’s doors. It is not just about what we see,
For true listening creates visions and there are clues
In this album for how Life can once more be bountiful.
We just have to retune, drop out and let the psychedelic
Become penicillin. Cure all ills. Curate chaos.
Call for changes inside and around you. You will escape
While reclining. ‘Then everything will be so very strange’
And as De Ray beams,
Beautiful.
David Erdos 13/9/23
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