Mendip Rock is the new EP by Cary Grace, recorded in and inspired by the breathtaking beauty of the Mendip Hills of England earlier this year with the Cary Grace Band.

The title is Cary’s answer to the relentless question, “So what genre of music is it anyway?” The nearest answer might be Classic Rock, but that has a connotation of being relevant only to the past, while this music is definitely relevant to the present. While it is interwoven with threads of Progressive Rock, Folk Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock, and even Space Rock, it is none of those things purely.

Mendip Rock seems to fit. A lighthearted pun in a sense, but standing in their presence, no one would really laugh at the skeletal bodies of the ancient hills which raise their velvety-green undulations into the English mist without the slightest concern for fickle trends, but rather with an air of inevitability and agelessness.

The EP consists of four original songs and a cover of “2000 Light Years From Home”, which in its mellotron-drenched original incarnation, sprinkled liberally with backwards piano, appeared on the 1967 Rolling Stones album Their Satanic Majesties Request. It is reinvented here with a very different sound and different arrangement, co-produced by Graham Hinton.

UK and Europe residents can buy it now from iTunes, and it will be released later on CD worldwide. If you would like to receive an email when Mendip Rock is available on CD, please fill out this form. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else.

More information about Cary Grace can be found on Cary’s website, www.carygrace.com, or on MySpace at MySpace.com/carygrace.

1. Amber (Cary Grace/Andy Budge)

Life as stasis, frozen in amber, observing a world filled with identities from the only unbiased position: a position of non-entity. “In the eye of the storm, all the answers agree.”

2. Firefly (Cary Grace)

Like rare glimpses into another world, the most precious things of beauty are often also the most fleeting. Vintage organ and sparkling guitar arpeggios evoke memories of a deep blue summer twilight.

3. Common Ground (Cary Grace)

One of the great injustices in the world is that the conformist masses will always outnumber those with an original thought.
“You bought a packet of ideas to make an instant point of view. With no opinions of your own, how dare you tell me what to do?”

4. Hollow Things (Cary Grace)

To live every day as if it is the last surely must be the way to live life to its fullest. Paradoxically, we must put death out of our minds to live life fully, because to devote even a moment to a thought of death is to give up that much of our lives to it. We all have our own individual variations on this deception.

5. 2000 Light Years From Home (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)

Nowhere is more lonely than space. This much longer and darker arrangement of the song builds on the imagery of the lyrics with echoing metallic percussives, mysterious scrapes, and alien rumbles intertwine with analogue synths and high voice-like glissando guitar, creating a cold, otherworldly soundscape with a quirky retro aesthetic.