AFTER rolling back into our lives and fuzzing everything up at the end of last month like a particularly psych-pop coastal fog with the deliciously eerie “Faceless Angel” and the unveiling of album the tenth, coming towards the end of April, once more, dear friends, once more, The Coral are ringmasters of the unforeseen.
And that’s because, for the first time in their long, reelin’ and hazin’ history, The Coral are bringing in a guest vocalist for Coral Island, while wholly keeping it in Ian and James’ bloodline; step forward Ian Murray, aka The Great Muriarty, all of 85 years young – and the brothers’ grand-père.
He’ll be knitting the album together as narrator, a Mersey- and Deeside Stanley Unwin, as on The Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake; as you can hear below, on “The Great Muriarty”.
He’ll be joining the dots across a double album on which Saturday roars across part the first, and Sunday longing and ennui comes to the fore on part the second.
The band approached Ian after considering other narrators during recording, including Tom O’Connor and boxing champion John Conteh.
The narrative components were written by the band’s Nick Power, who has also penned the companion book to the album, Over Coral Island.
The narrative was recorded at Mr Murray’s Merseyside home.
James Skelly says of the guest appearance: “Coral Island is a world of end-of-the-pier day drinkers, kids who get where they shouldn’t, pre-rock and roll macabre jukebox pop and long nights of risky fun by the pitch-black sea.
“It seemed to call for a tour guide of some kind. Our grandad’s voice was an obvious choice to say the words none of us can say without a musical instrument in our hands.”
The Coral’s Coral Island will be released by Run On Records in association with Modern Sky UK on April 30th.
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