The name James Ray may not be well known in this country, but his music will undoubtably apeal to fans of gothic and industrial music. Up until now, Ray’s music has been available only on import, but now Fifth Colvum has released as “Best Of” collection tht brings together music from 2 of the singer/musician’s projects – James Ray And The Performance and James Ray’s Gangwar.
With their first demo in 1986, James Ray And The Performance attracted the attention of Sisters Of Mercy frontman Andrew Eldritch, who signed them to his Merciful Release label. That year, several members split from Sisters of Mercy and that group went on hiatus to do legal questions surrounded who had the rights to the name. During this time, Ray joined Eldritch on his temporary project, Sisterhood. Ray sang lead vocals on the Sisterhood’s single “Giving Ground.”
James Ray & The Performance, which also included Carl Harrison, released their first single, “Mexican Sundown Blues/Edie Sedgwick”, in July 1986. Due to managerial problems and Ray’s involvement in the Sisterhood’s “Gift” album, it wasn’t until June of 1987 that the band was heard from again. Their second singles was “Texas/Mountain Voices/Johnny Goodbye.”
At this point, things slowed down again for the band as Ray became a member of the live incarnation of Sisters of Mercy, appearing on numerous European TV shows to promote “Floodland.” The Performance then went back into the studio to record tracks for an album, but it was never completed.
“With Harrison’s lack of enthusiasm for live work and Merciful Release’s slow burning attitute towards the LP, I decided enough was enough and decided a change was in order,” says Ray.
In May 1989, Ray recruited bassist Damon Vingoe and guitarist Travis Earl to form James Ray’s Gangwar. After recording 8 songs and taking them on the road, the group also signed to Merciful Release. Their first single, “Another Million Dollars/Hell, Blonde, Chiara” was released in October 1989, the same day as “Dust Boat/A New Kind Of Assassin/Southern While Knights”, the final Performance single. A Performance compilation, “A New Kind Of Assassin,” was relased the next year, followed by the second Gangwar single, “Without Conscience/Destination Assassination.”
With another falling out with Merciful Relseas, Gangwar released their third single, “Rev Rev Lowrider/Hardwar” on the Slaveking label. The groupl returned to Merciful to honor their contracted album agreement, releasing “Dio Esta De Nuestro Ladp” on the label. The line-up featured the addition of second guitarist John Bainbridge. After releasing the “Fuel/Cadillac Coming” single, the group ended their involvment with Merciful Release, due, according to Ray, to lack of promotion.
The new collection on Fifth Colvmn brings together five tracks from the “A New Kind Of Assassin” album and nine from “Dios Esta De Nuestro Lade.”
“The material had been availalbe on import in America, but only in limited quantitiy,” explains Ray. “The Tracks on ‘The Best Of..’ were selected by Jared (Chamlab) at Fifth Colvmn abd are not the tracks that Gangwar would have chosen to preomote themselves.”
Stlyistacally, Ray’s various projects share some similarities with the music of Sisters Of Mercy. The music and vocals are extremely dark, and the guitars are backed by electronic percussion. Ray, however, allows synthetic sounding electronics to play a bigger role in the sound than Eldritch and company.
“Machines will always come first, in the same way as the design of aspacecraft is paramounto to the human astronaut,” says Ray. “A machine will obey commands and not drink the rider!”
Since putting out the material collected on ‘The Best Of….’, Ray has had several release. Gangwar have put out two albums, “Third Generation” (Surgery Recrods) in 1993 and “Psychodalek’ (24:24) in 1996. Ray has put out two solo albums as The MKUltra – “This Is This” (Mercifiul/Rough Trade Deutchlans) in 1994 and Beluga Pop (Merciful/R.T.D.) in 1996. James Ray has also put out a Novella, “Psyhodalek” on 24:24.
