David Grubb - Circadia (2024)

David Grubb finds musical challenges in unusual places, and on Circadia, he wordlessly depicts our dreamworlds, shining a light on a time when who we are and what we know mysteriously stirs the mind while the body rests.

Befitting a graduate of The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, David Grubb has created a wealth of music transcending traditional labels. While he’s called his music “post-folk,” that hardly scratches the surface of what emerges on Circadia. His primary instrument is the violin, yet the Scottish composer plays the viola, mandolin, singing saw and theremin on the album. Alongside Annie Perry’s clarinet, his band includes Corben Lee’s piano, keyboards, and suitcase celeste. Daniel Whitting fills the acoustic and electric guitar chair, while Aidan Thorne handles the bass (acoustic and electric), and Jon Reynolds plays drums and percussion.

What emerges is a concept album examining the human subconscious and sleep process. Fascinating and unruly, the album’s 17 tracks cover virtually every occurrence that takes place when the lights go out, from the grind of life that leads to the need for sleep to revealing the strange notions that transpire when the world of sleep takes over the conscious mind. This creates a mysterious blend of sound attempting to enter the dreams and themes that fill our minds at rest.

One’s typical sleep cycle becomes Grubb’s roadmap to examine the unconscious mind. Beautiful and bizarre, measure by measure, this transit inside the mind can be both fascinating and terrifying. Daily Grind examines the forces that create exhaustion and prepare us for the dream state. Simple drumming and a plucked violin establish a pattern that seems to be disrupted by other instruments. This transit of the waking hours appears to be in a constant state of flux.

The sectional nature of Nightmare offers untold horrors in a wealth of genres, leaving one questioning what we see when the lights go out. Instead of our brains being asleep, a frightening number of forces seem to be at play. The Somnambulist delves into the emergence of motor functions resuming during an unconscious state. Beginning from the moment the body becomes aware of its autonomy, the music walks a tightrope as the violin and clarinet gently play off each other. Still, malice exists just below the surface, coming into greater focus as the piece continues.

Hypnopompia is a track that rocks so hard it could exist on various prog or heavy meal discs. Combined with Atroph, a squall of sound is created, making it hard to qualify Grubb as merely a folk player. Both his formal education and his ability to fit into a wide range of contexts (he’s a member of the Welsh trash-trad band, NoGood Boyo and founded the bluegrass Taff Rapids Stringband) illustrate how Grubb goes in whatever directions his muse leads.

Standing on tradition has never been a strong point in David Grubb’s music. As demonstrated here, he finds musical challenges in unusual places as he wordlessly depicts the dreamworlds of Circadia, shining a light on a time when who we are and what we know mysteriously stirs the mind while the body rests.