Something Secret

By Lois Wilson, November 2007, Mojo Magazine

Carol Grimes started out as a beatnik busker, serenading drinkers outside pubs with renditions of Summertime and The House Of The Rising Sun in 1962. By the close of the decade she'd formed the blues-folk combo The Race and supported Cream and Howlin' Wolf. Since then she's worked with Orlando Gough and releases 2004's Mother, an LP of poignant soulful reworkings of songs by Sandy Denny and Tom Waits. In '97, she first paired with sound improviser and field recorder Giles Perring in experimental choir The Shout. They formed their duo Something Secret in 2002. This their debut fuses disquieting Gris Gris to Grimes' intoxicating vocals, equal parts Marsha Hunt, Julie Driscoll and Merry Clayton, turning her song poems - titles Skinside Out, Woman To Child - into seductive, hypnotic and terrifying incantations. It's a remarkable piece.