STRAYS DON’T SLEEP
“Cold war is gone, cold war is over, dear. Now it’s satellites, dirty bombs and fear” - 'Cars and History'

Sometimes what begins as a side road unexpectedly evolves into a primary path. Strays Don’t Sleep are a beautiful accident made by unlikely partners who sought a vacation but instead found a new muse. With Strays Don’t Sleep, every story is told from every angle. The band is elegant and dirty. The music is modern and minimal; a cinematic blend between Sinatra, Roxy Music, Curtis Mayfield, the Blue Nile and life, indeed, through the lens of ambient urban folk music. All traffic lights and rain, glowing windows and sparse noise. It’s a kind of sublime love letter to loneliness, hope and hopelessness. Moods so sharp they’re epic. Words so personal they’re universal.

Strays Don’t Sleep is a collaboration between Matthew Ryan and Neilson Hubbard who already have well established solo careers as two of the most intelligent and heralded underground artists living in the Southern United States. Ryan has released several critically acclaimed albums of moody yet anthemic guitar rock on A&M, One Little Indian and Hybrid Recordings. Hubbard has released three solo albums of atmospheric melodic pop-rock with a fourth due in late 2006. Both have an impressive resume. Ryan has scored film music for Ed Burns (Ash Wednesday) and Gorman Bechard (You Are Alone). He has toured with everyone from Badly Drawn Boy to Lucinda Williams, had songs covered by artists such as Kasey Chambers, all the while quietly carving out a career independent of the pop industry’s trappings. Hubbard has produced records for Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket), Garrison Starr, Michelle Malone and many others. In addition, Hubbard has a long list of film and television placements of his own material.

Two years ago, Ryan approached Hubbard about collaborating on a few recordings, believing it might result in some interesting tracks to make available as a DIY release through their respective websites. They never expected the partnership to blossom into something that transformed their ideas of who they are as musicians and what they do as artists.
“It’s a bit easier when the ‘I’ becomes ‘we’,” says Ryan. “To be a solo artist takes an almost toxic amount of ego. I was rarely comfortable in that. But to be in a collaboration like this, it feels like you’re standing up for your friends. You’re part of a gang.”
“Music feels more complete now,” adds Hubbard, “this situation feels free. And we’re just discovering what we can do. It’s exciting.”

Strays Don’t Sleep is a five-piece living in Nashville and their line-up is completed by musician friends who “understand the power of suggestion rather than overstatement.” This line-up includes: Brian Bequette (guitar, loops), a carpenter with a Phd in English Literature who has taught Beowolf so many times it makes his head hurt; visual artist, mechanic and, primarily for these discussions, bassist Billy Mercer who has a previous conviction in Ryan Adams’ Pinkhearts and who famously “stood in,” lip-synching for Adams on CDUK not so long ago; and finally drummer and ex-drug and alcohol counsellor Steve Latanation, a member of Agent Orange who has played with Maria McKee amongst others. Their collective living and experience informs Strays Don’t Sleep.

Strays Don’t Sleep share a philosophy that believes that music and film is like diving into the ocean - it should envelope you. On their exquisite, nay enchanting, self-titled debut, Strays Don’t Sleep have combined both to produce a collection of songs and films, the latter finding their inspiration from each song. These vibrant and intelligent shorts were directed and shot by professional filmmakers and friends, including Gorman Bechard, the Barnes Brothers, Martin Glenn, Matt Boyd and Jared Johnson. The band themselves appear inconspicuously in only one of the vignettes. Ryan and Hubbard, however, directed three of the films themselves with the help of Nashville film student, Matt Riddlehoover. A 5.1 surround sound mix of the entire record and films, by Pdub of Bjork and Sneaker Pimps fame, is available on the DVD.

Evocative film collection aside, Strays Don’t Sleep are naturally about songs. And what songs they are: the album’s opener, ‘Love Don’t Owe You Anything’ matches a buoyantly majestic melody against hard-won wisdom, blending Cole Porter, Leonard Cohen and Wim Wenders into something both timeless and thoroughly modern – in time, it reveals Ryan’s treacle-tipped voice to be as sensitive an instrument as anything the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanon has got in his armoury; ‘Pretty Girl’ dissects lust, love and disappointment whilst breezily recalling a random collision with feminine beauty on a train; ‘Martin Luther Avenue’ places the light tones of single piano notes over a subtly shifting, darkly rising rhythm (while implying that cynicism can melt under the heat of impassioned activism). Ultimately, of course, as language leans and voices layer and circle, Strays Don’t Sleep - from the stunning wish-it-could-go-on-forever ‘For Blue Skies’ to the so-brittle-it-hurts impassioned plea that is ‘Cars and History’- offer us a series of compelling photographs of strangers who are smiling with hope and determination. Has there ever been such a beautiful, beautiful record?

At an earlier juncture, the Sunday Express felt compelled to divulge that Strays Don’t Sleep “have put together a quiet, unsettling, cinematic album that paints a fragile picture of modern love.”
Somehow, this is all just so perfect.

Strays Don’t Sleep release ‘Strays Don’t Sleep’ on One Little Indian on May 15th 2006. The band will be touring with Josh Rouse throughout the UK in May.