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| Charlie and Nance Nieland met in front of the Ionic column working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC in late 1986. The sparks led to long conversations about life and music and eventually to a deep relationship that formed the basis for their band, Her Vanished Grace, and subsequently their marriage. They played their first show as a duo at The Knitting Factory the same month as their wedding in 1988. The colorful new wave and goth influenced songs from HVG's early years were also informed by their deep love of the Cocteau Twins and early My Bloody Valentine, well before the term shoegaze. They made their debut, STATE OF GRACE (1991) and FESTIVAL (1992) as a duo and then recorded WAITING (1994) with a band that included Matt Johnson, from Jeff Buckley's band on drums, keyboardist John Bechdel from Killing Joke and Murder Inc and Kris Jefferson on bass. By 1995, John Bechdel moved on to play with Prong, Rodney Ledbetter joined on drums and Nance debuted on guitar. The four piece recorded SOON (1996), which neatly balanced dream pop with the urgency of indie rock. In 1997, Nance and Charlie began playing with bass player Maria Theodosiadou and drummer Brian Haarer. With all members sharing musical ideas and Charlie recording the music himself, Her Vanished Grace produced the sprawling COLORS VOL 1 & 2 (2000), striking out in all directions with pop, electronica and prog sensibilities. Charlie and Nance then became involved with the scoring of the film THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS, completed in 2001, which also included the song "Out The Window" from COLORS. Brian Haarer departed and in 2003 drummer Billy Loose joined, ushering Her Vanished Grace into a new era. The band's new chemistry led to a series of annual releases. With PARADISE (2004) and then GET UP (2005), HVG really hit its stride, powered by brightly sculpted melodies, winging Morse code guitar filigree and driving post punk rhythms. SATELLITES (2006) and TWILIGHT (2007) showed that HVG's atmospheric direction was becoming increasingly tuned in to the resurgence of shoegaze. With BLUE (2009), Her Vanished Grace blended vintage guitar rasp with colorful clouds of sound, achieving airplay on college and alternative stations. The band honed their propulsive melancholia into crushing walls of noisy beauty on SEE THE MOON (2011). They animated their sound with lush chord voicings and driving rhythms on tracks like "I Know What Time It Is", "Make It Lighter" and "Passenger", the latter boasting a stunningly trippy video directed by B. A. Miale. Already working on new material with their band mates and guest musicians from Dead Leaf Echo, Black Sugar Transmission and The Invisible Kid, Nance and Charlie continue to explore music that expresses the mysterious something that brought them together; beautiful gravity. |