Adam Morrow is humble about his music, and yet his duo Sister Ray Davies still have what it takes to suit a label like the English Sonic Cathedral. 

“Hat-trick!” proclaims Nat Cramp, the former NME journalist and now head of Sonic Cathedral. The sticking point Cramp with Sister Ray Davies wasn’t one thing. It was three: “The name, then where they came from, then the music.” 

It was a band name that made him laugh and “still does!” 

The name is a bit of portmanteau and Jeopardy! “Before and After.” Most would recognize one, the other, or both. “Sister Ray” is a Velvet Underground song from White Light/White Heat which includes an orgy, a murder, and drugs. Lots of drugs. Ray Davies, maybe having done some drugs himself, is another famous Brit known for his work with The Kinks, one of Morrow’s favorite bands. 

As Cramp notes, Morrow is “a committed Anglophile!” beyond the British invasion. He knows his way around the English menus, at the very least, as Cramp sees when he and Morrow sit to “down a couple pints.” 

Jamie Sego works in Portside Sound in Sheffield, Alabama. Nestled against the Tennessee River, it’s the area which many would simply call “the Shoals.” It’s no blame to them for getting the specifics wrong. It’s the studio where Bob Dylan recorded Grammy-award winning Slow Train Coming, not to mention work done by George Michael, the Rolling Stones, and Aretha Franklin. Legendary Portside sits in the historic Cyprus Moon building. Most know it as Muscle Shoals Sounds, when it existed from 1978 until 2005. 

Morrow is “a committed Anglophile!”

Sego makes up the other half of Sister Ray Davies. “Bit of a sonic genius on the quiet” lauds Cramp, high praise coming from the man who runs a label called Sonic Cathedral.   

Cramp finds himself a “Muscle Shoals/country-soul nerd” for lack of a better term. He’s been “for quite a while now” and he hopes to visit “some day.” It didn’t hurt that Sister Ray Davies are from Muscle Shoals, but it takes more than a location. Bands need to have heft. 

It’s mostly a feeling when Cramp decides upon who’s right and wrong for his Sonic Cathedral. “[S]ome things just work and get the feels going,” he maintains. But Sister Ray Davies had the songs for them to work on the famous British label. 

As SRD continues its current venture across the UK for a series of shows to finish April, Cramp barely contains his excitement: “It’s going to be fun to hear these songs live at last!” 

The songs build around a frame. 

Holy Island, their first full-length release, packs shoegaze buzz layered with the mythical: the album centers around Lindisfarne, England, the “Holy Island.” Saint Aidan founded the island in the 7th century. It played a key role in the spreading of Christianity in the area. Hence, the magic of it.

Holy Island feels at one with the actual Holy Island. There’s a warmth in the examined and the long gone. While the music comforts listeners, it also challenges: a place where “unrequited pleasure” sits with “a wrecking ball…forever.” The dichotomies come in waves and then crash with the living and the dying. 

It all makes for a perfect fit with Sonic Cathedral to the point where the label and band have a new 10” EP, Holy Island Baby. The EP remixes and plays further with the sounds on top of sounds. Holy Island thickens the air, still, as the sounds are shapes unto themselves

It’s all part of what Cramp can’t put his finger on, “the magic formula.” 

Sister Ray Davies still “cuts through the noise,” per Cramp. 

Morrow will never admit it, but it was magic. 

It’s damn near holy.