Gravity Tree is ...

"...a duo who definitely punches a hole through the more established forms of Prog and creates their own sound." *

Creating their own sound has been the driving force in Gravity Tree, an experimental, progressive rock duo hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Gravity Tree influences fall all over the musical map: rock bands of the '60's and '70's, film soundtrack composers, performance artists, game music (which drummer/keyboardist Alan Nu also writes), and the "classics". The music Gravity Tree plays is sometimes referred to as Art Rock or Prog Rock, but other genre titles also fall on the group: Avant-Prog, Math Rock, Experimental - even Fusion or Alternative.

Alan and Linc had become friends during session work and live support for other bands and artists. The two had discussions about the instrumentation of a band, and how full arrangements of songs could be performed between two musicians. Out of this, Gravity Tree was formed. With few exceptions, all the instruments heard in the music are played between the two of them. They perform live as a two-piece, but the show is anything but 'unplugged'. This both challenges and liberates them, in search of a unique sound and style.

After an early vinyl release (and a number of live shows to prove it could be done), they put forth their first CD, "Life or Dessert?" . This was followed up by appearances on several compilation CDs (including the Bay Prog Compilation disc), and more recently their album "Ultimate Backward".

In addition to critical praise, the band held the number 1 and 2 spots on the Progressive chart on NumberOneMusic for more than a year, with more than a million plays on their site page to date. Exposé Magazine has said: "Gravity Tree is one of the more interesting progressive bands around... their material bears a stamp of currency, yet also features the conceptual ideals of classic progressive rock."

Gravity Tree is currently in the studio, at work on a new album.

Alan Nu: Drums, Synthesisizers, Voice
Linc: Guitars, Bass, Voice

A NOTE FROM ALAN, GRAVITY TREE DRUMMER / KEYBOARDIST / PRODUCER:

First, thanks for visiting our website! I wanted to try to answer upfront one of the big Gravity Tree mysteries, that slogan at the top of the page " 2 musicians, 4 instruments, 1 prog rock band". How can 2 people play 4 instruments at the same time? It's even hard for fans who's seen us live to grasp. I think that's because we live in a time where even live performers use computer sequencers, sampled loops, drum machines and have other musicians hidden behind the scenes playing parts. We buy "live" albums by bands who have many many extra musicians onstage helping them get the album's sound, not to mention computer operators running sequences that may have 50% or more of the music tracks the audience is hearing. Then they go into the studio and re-record many of the tracks, and still release it as a live record. I can understand why some groups want to use machines to play parts live. It's very hard to perform a complex arrangement in a live setting. So bands get assistance, and that can be fine for them, depending on how an audience perceives and enjoys it, or not. But Gravity Tree is not about all that.

We decided long ago that for this project at least, the best, most honest performance we can give you is where we actually play everything you hear, so that's what we strive for. To this end, Linc has had customized instruments created or modified. These 'combo guitars' as we like to call them, have both bass strings and guitar strings on the same neck of the instrument, with special pickup and electronic configurations to allow him to process these 2 distinct sounds individually. So he plays the bass part and the guitar part at the same time. (To see a couple of pictures of these instruments, go to the Gear page by clicking HERE. As for me, I have a keyboard and several synth triggers mounted on my drum kit, to allow me to play keys and drums simultaneously. When you see one of our live shows, you won't hear pre-recorded anything; nothing is sequenced and we play it all right in front of you. We may at some point add a person to the live line up, but right now there's just two of us. We've been told that at times our live sound is fuller than our recordings. So I'm trying to make our recordings better!

In the studio, there are some overdubs and many of the usual things one does to make an album sound as good as possible. We don't have the facilities to perform and record all our songs live, and there are technical and temporal sacrifices to that process which usually make it too cumbersome for us to initiate. But we play everything you hear on the CD. Linc often plays the guitar and bass parts simultaneously, just like he would at a live show. I don't pull up the latest coolest drum loop off some prerecorded CD library; I figure out the parts and play the drums myself. Sometimes I trigger samples by playing drum pads, many times I play a real acoustic kit, but I always really play what you hear. Same with the synths. If there's some big arpeggiated line, I sat down, practiced it and played it. There's no session guy brought in to fix the guitar or drum parts, no keyboards programmed by some wiz tech guy. We write the songs, tune the guitars and drums, tweak the synthesizers and sing the vocals, record all the parts, arrange, mix, everything. There's a place for bringing in more people and colaborating, which might happen one day. But that probably won't be called Gravity Tree.

I wanted to share all of this in an attempt to clarify some of the confusion about Gravity Tree, and that we're really about the music and making it the best we can, as far as 2 people can take it. If you'd like to know more about how we make the music we do or have a technical question, please write me. I hope you enjoy the music we labor long and hard over, and thanks again for stopping by the site.

Alan

* USAProgressiveMusic