INTRODUCING: Sky Valley Mistress
“I just wanna tell you guys a little somethin’ about this record. Somethin’ that you really need to know. I want this to perforate your eardrums, have a fight inside your head and leave a slow burnin’ fire in the darkest part of your mind. That will never let you forget what will be embedded inside you forever. Let it puncture your heart, bleed through your body and electrify your soul. Because this, THIS IS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.” These are the words of Dave Catching, guitarist of QUEEN OF THE STONE AGE and EAGLES OF DEATH METAL, and what he is talking about is Faithless Rituals, the debut offering from SKY VALLEY MISTRESS.
It’s certainly high praise to have such a figure in the rock world praise your debut outing, but the famed guitarist isn’t just talking praise, he had a direct hand in producing the Blackburn-based upstarts’ debut outing as they spent ten days recording with Catching at his Rancho de la Luna studio in California . For vocalist Kayley Davies, this is the stuff of dreams. “It was just the coolest thing,” she tells us. “It still feels like a dream, the place is beautiful and everyone is so welcoming and warm. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience recording our debut album and I think that shows when you listen to it.”
Spending ten days out with Catching at his iconic recording studio sounds like a phenomenal experience, but, there was work to be done. With only ten days for SKY VALLEY MISTRESS to craft their debut opus, did Kayley and her bandmates ever feel the strain of the task at hand? “It was more intense than frantic, really. We put in some LONG hours. That was one of the main things we learned when we were there. We let the idea of Rancho put a lot of pressure on us and we put in a lot of practice for pre-production so we didn’t really need to go in as hard as we did. Dave really helped keep us cool and relaxed and put a lot of confidence in us that we’d nailed it. He really taught us that once that red light is on, you’ve done the hard work and you’ve just got to let that moment happen, because when you do the best results will come out. Once we settled in, we really started to appreciate Rancho for the amazing, creative place it is. It isn’t like any other studio in the world!”
Indeed, recording out in the Californian sun with an iconic figure in the world of rock ‘n’ roll is the stuff of dreams, but Kayley has made a fine point about the finished product. One cursory listen to the band’s debut and you’ll see exactly what she means. Faithless Rituals is jam-packed full of killer riffs that boast the coolest swagger, packaged with the snot-nosed attitude that all the slickest rock bands need to survive against the competition. And speaking of the competition, rock music has been never been stronger. Whilst it’s a given that certain figures within our world will make the annual claim that “rock is dead”, when you really look at the crop of bands breaking through, or the health of scenes across the globe, that statement couldn’t be any further from the truth. Kayley agrees wholeheartedly. “Yeah that whole thing about rock and roll being dead has never made sense to us, you’re just not looking hard enough. There’s a ton of killer bands we’ve either played with or just know from them being ridiculously bad ass like PSYENCE, DEJA VEGA and WOOZE.”
It’s fair to say that SKY VALLEY MISTRESS have hit the ball out of the park with Faithless Rituals. Their debut glistens with quality and it sets solid foundations for what comes next. In normal circumstances, once could imagine the young band touring relentlessly across the UK, and perhaps overseas, to bring the brand of rocking noise to the masses. But these are not normal times. The COVID-19 pandemic has crippled the live music industry to its knees and whilst some bands have used the time in quarantine to write rather than tour, Kayley says for SKY VALLEY MISTRESS, this is uncharted waters.
“Not touring your debut album feels strange. Most of us struggle copy and pasting on a computer so we’re trying to adapt to writing electronically with each other. We like being in a room and playing together but if there’s anything that’s going to set you up for a new creative direction, this is it. We’re probably going to end up becoming a krautrock electronic synth band like KRAFTWERK but we won’t want to lose the punk edge so we’ll start smashing laptops on stage instead of guitars!”
It’s nice that despite the misery gripping the world with the COVID-19 pandemic that Kayley remains humorous and as such, ends our chat on the most positive of notes. “That’s a tough question because I don’t think live music has ever taken a hit as hard as this. It’s hard to plan for the future right now but I think bands need to get back on the road as soon as they can. We’ll be damned if we’re not going to get this album out on tour so all I do know is that it’s going to be one hell of a party when we’re finally unleashed.” It sounds like the party to end all parties. Count us in.
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