Singer: Saline Grace
Title: Blacksmith's Fire
Label: DeeperWatersRecords ‎– DWRCD05
Type: CD, Album
Country: Germany
Date of released: 04 Sep 2017
Category: Rock
Style: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock
Size MP3 zip: 1412 mb
Size FLAC zip: 1258 mb
Rating: 4.7✭
Format: MP3 DXD FLAC MP2 MP3 VOC DTS MP1 FLAC

Tracklist

01.	Autumn Night
02.	The Dream And The Wings
03.	Blacksmith's Fire
04.	Where Our Path Is Going
05.	Sapphire Blue
06.	The Silvery Cross
07.	The Cyclone Of Our Seasons
08.	Down By The Banks Of Oder River
09.	Little Heart
10.	Driftwood

Companies, etc.

• Mastered At – Nepenthes Mastering
• Pressed By – Handle With Care

Credits

• Bass – Ines Pollok
• Design – Janka Klouche-Thurn
• Mastered By – Timour Klouche
• Mixed By – Ricardo Hoffmann
• Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Bass, Organ, Concertina, Banjo, Chimes, Percussion – Ricardo Hoffmann

Notes

Release Info:

Four years after their brilliant album ‘Fog Mountain’, Saline Grace are back with their third and latest album ‘Blacksmith’s Fire’ and an official video to their song ‘The Dream And The Wings’. Unfortunately, for family reasons co-founder and long-time bass player Ines Hoffmann could apply herself to the album and her instrument severely limited.
If ‘Fog Mountain’ was strongly dominated by mystically threatening Americana- and Psychedelic sounds, Saline Grace present sophisticated and diverse arrangements without equal on ‘Blacksmith’s Fire’ releasing a tension-filled album as if made from one piece.
As on their last albums, Saline Grace place value on their familiar, almost exclusively acoustic instruments, which in their interaction, strictly renounce modern styles of music creating a sound that seems to come from between the 1950s and the 1980s.
The extraordinarily filigree, not uncommonly classical guitar techniques and fingerstyle parts, the voluminous mandolin-like ornaments and Ennio Moriccone-like twang sounds are recognisably Ricardo Hoffmann’s, who knows to create pictorial synaesthesias raising nightly panoramas from imaginatively enraptured roadmovies or the imagery of wild and near-natural sceneries.
Subtly woven into a fragile sound stage, mainly consisting of piano, organ, concertina, banjo, classical string arrangements as well as its deeply resonating bass and those jazzy drums, the listener is inevitably getting entangled in a sound experience that is drawing marvellously attention to singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ricardo Hoffmann’s emotional baritone, who is capable of mastering a falsetto, too.
Hoffmann’s poetry struggles with the great issues of anthropological philosophy, where his protagonists act full of symbolism in front of surreal, near-natural sceneries. He questions the place of man in nature and the progressing estrangement in their artificial environment, their culture as well and quarrels with the all-embracing timeline in our human existence scrutinizing mankind’s forward- or backward-looking behaviour.
The new album shows Saline Grace powerful and on their highest level, performing with virtuosity, vigorous dynamics and haunting melancholy at the same time.
Indeed, ‘Blacksmith’s Fire’ impresses with diversity of its arrangements, variety of vocals and its uniquely captured atmosphere, captivating the listener not only by wonderful melodies, but also by Ricardo Hoffmann’s distinctive voice, who conveys deep melancholy coupled with hidden rage, solitude and, in very few instances, hope as well.

For fans of And Also The Trees, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, The Doors, Calexico and Tindersticks

Biography:

Ricardo Hoffmann, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of Saline Grace, was born in the eastern border town of Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, in 1975. In 1994 he founded his first band project, becoming two years later, in 1996, the avantgarde band Nobility Of Salt. In 1997 the band released a first demo tape, ‘The Evening Prayer’, and moved to London, playing numerous UK gigs which left appropriate traces on a further demo-tape, ‘Through Clouds And Thoughtful Years’, in 1998. At the beginning of 2000 and after three years’ residence in Britain, the band worked on their first album in Berlin, Germany, releasing ‘The Tremulous Sea’ a few months later. After releasing the EP ‘The Silent Ship’ in 2002, followed a further album release, called ‘Those Narrow Streets’, in 2004. Due to organisational reasons, this should be the last Nobility Of Salt album for the time being.
In 2005 Ricardo Hoffmann began to work on material for the first Saline Grace album. On this occasion, he was supported by his wife and long-term bass player, Ines Hoffmann (née Pollok), who was born in 1976 in Frankfurt (Oder) as well. Joining the former band Nobility Of Salt in 1996, she has shared the musical trail, her fate as well as the inspirations with Ricardo Hoffmann until nowadays. Saline Grace released their gorgeous and critically acclaimed debut album, ‘Border Town Shades’, in September 2007.
In 2011 Ricardo Hoffmann made time for a short guest appearance, joining Hamburg-based band Dark Orange on their album ‘Horizont’. Along with Steven Burrows (And Also The Trees) on bass, Ricardo Hoffmann contributed on additional guitars and piano. Whilst involved in the final work for a further Saline Grace album in 2012, he furthermore created his ‘Rising Stream Mix’ of Dark Orange’s song ‘Traumwandler’ for ‘Interpretations’, the bonus CD of the same release; other remixes were made by artists like Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), members of And Also The Trees and many more.
On 21st January 2013, more than five years after their debut, the long-awaited second Saline Grace album ‘Fog Mountain was released. Critically acclaimed by music journalists and chosen as one of the best ten albums of 2013 by German music magazine Amboss, this musically very sophisticated album was their most important work so far.
Now, four years after their fulminant ‘Fog Mountain’, Saline Grace are back with their latest and already third album ‘Blacksmith’s Fire’. Distributed by cdbaby, ‘Blacksmith’s Fire’ has been released by Deeper Waters Records on 4th September 2017.

DISCOGRAPHY

SALINE GRACE - BORDER TOWN SHADES (CD 2007/DWRCD03)
SALINE GRACE - FOG MOUNTAIN (CD 2013/DWRCD04)
SALINE GRACE - BLACKSMITH’S FIRE (CD 2017/DWRDC05)

APPEARANCES

DARK SPY COMPILATION VOL. 17 (CD 2008/Dark Spy Magazine – Issue No. 23)
MICK MERCER - MUSIC TO DIE FOR (Cherry Red Books 2009)
DARK ORANGE – HORIZONT (2CD 2012/KAL41)
ORKUS! COMPILATION 87 (CD 2013/Orkus! Magazine – Issue No. 03 – March 2013)
COLD HANDS SEDUCTION – VOL. 191 (CD 2017/Sonic Seducer – September 2017)

RELATED PROJECTS

NOBILITY OF SALT - THE EVENING PRAYER (Demo 1997)
NOBILITY OF SALT - THROUGH CLOUDS AND THOUGHTFUL YEARS (Demo 1998)
NOBILITY OF SALT - THE TREMULOUS SEA (first album 2000/DWRCD01)
NOBILITY OF SALT - THE SILENT SHIP EP (CDM 2002/DWRCDM01)
NOBILITY OF SALT - THOSE NARROW STREETS (CD 2004/DWRCD02

Barcode and Other Identifiers

• Barcode (Text): 190394387686
• Matrix / Runout: DWRCD05 AG55919-01