Gemma Ray’s latest opus, ‘The Exodus Suite’, is a dramatic 52- minute odyssey through her unique style of epic torch song psychedelia.

Recorded live in seven days at the infamous Candy Bomber Studios (situated in the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin) by Ingo Krauss, the album’s title reflects the personal-political themes of the songs within.

An unexpected yet inescapable influence on ‘The Exodus Suite’ sessions was the presence of 8,000 Syrian refugees housed in the hangar beneath the studio during the recording. The stark reality of the refugees’ circumstances (they are still housed there to this day) and the experience of these sights, sounds and smells right within spitting distance, lent a profoundly immediate dimension to Gemma Ray’s lyrical explorations of love for all life, exile and relocation, nature’s sovereignty, technology, class and most of all the need for human empathy.

‘The Exodus Suite’ is set in two parts, starting with a hymn-like paean to nature’s forces, ‘Come Caldera’, a prelude that then kicks into the soulful grit of ‘There Must Be More Than This’, an Afro-Beat meets Krautrock gambol with a sprinkling of Ethiopiques courtesy of guest pianist Carwyn Ellis (who has previously worked with Edwyn Collins, Roddy Frame and Shane MacGowan, among others). After a monumental journey, the esoteric, skulking ‘Shimmering’ rounds off the album.

LP format includes a digital download code.

The LP includes the tracks ‘Come Caldera’ and ‘Caldera, Caldera!’ on a separate bonus 7” single. (These two tracks are included on all formats, bookending the tracklists for the CD and digital download formats.)