Conray - bio

 

Dale Cotton, the producer/engineer behind HDU, Dimmer, The Subliminals, Cloudboy, Sola Rosa and others has offered up his own project in the form Conray. And about bloody time too we might add!

In his role of producer/engineer Dale has made something like 40 records, a healthy portion of which are critically acclaimed as some of the best to come out of New Zealand. As well as the ears, Dale is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter – his touches appear anonymously on most the records he works on – (you’d be surprised at some of the hooks he’s responsible for). He straddles all musical forms, (for example, later this year will see the release of two hip-hop albums he’s written and mixed for – WWC and MC Lucia).

His credits to date include the popular and acclaimed Dimmer and Sola Rosa, and of course, his ground breaking work with the group HDU. It’s a discography that includes anyone from Mink and Cloudboy to Mestar and The Subliminals. All of which have earned him critical accolades from the press, and music fans worldwide. Add recording gigs spanning from a sheep shed up North, to a world class studio in Chicago; a couple of B-net Producer of the Year Awards, and a mighty list of "way too many" shows as live engineer for countless acts – and you’ll still only get part of the picture.

I could go on, but he’ll hate this.

Dale just likes making music, and over the past six months, he finally sat down and made his own album,

"It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time', says Dale. 'It all started when I was working on a couple of hip hop records and was writing beats and melodies. Out of those writing sessions came a handful of bits and pieces that didn't suit the project, that's when I got the idea that maybe I should - finally - make my own album".

This meant not only was Dale engineering and producing himself, he was programming beats, playing the instruments, and mashing samples, - yep, a true one-man record.

"When I first started writing the songs I envisaged that I'd get some of the musicians I know in to play, but as I progressed I ended up adding more and more layers myself, and it seemed to be working so I continued that way, then, it was finished, and it had been just me".

Drawing on anything Dale's, into from house and jazz to hip hop and dub, the result is a truly stunning debut album.

With samples providing the theme of MEFASOLATE. There are several thousand fragments of records from the 60s and 70s "the golden age of vinyl", the common thread being, all the records were New Zealand pressings.

Varied, yet cohesive. Adventurous, yet soothing. With the best album title in ages – think, The Sound of Music….

A profoundly pleasurable album to sink into, much like a nice warm bath.