About

Alex Mounsey, a.k.a. “Gronk”, began writing and recording music at the tender age of nine, and spent his teenage years developing his craft while growing up inside the English boarding school system. Studying in such a strict disciplinarian atmosphere was a powerful experience which provided Gronk with a strong education and a slightly odd outlook on life, as well as a few personal issues that lend his music a healthy dose of introspection.

By the time he was expelled from school at age eighteen Gronk had recorded a goth double-album, a synth symphony, two twenty-minute drum ‘n’ bass pieces and a song for every English monarch from 1066 onwards. On moving to London he formed the band Carnival of Souls, whose music progressed from violin-led dark folk to psychedelic dub, finally settling on a more recognisable emo-rock sound before the group split in 2008. Their album Unit 13 is available to buy from the iTunes Store or through CD Baby.

True to his eclectic, slightly manic track record, Gronk switched direction yet again, releasing a synthetic pop album from his website before heading to the USA with $99 and a laptop. There he hooked up with a saxophone and marimba player, and made the first few recordings for what would become the new album The Long Way Round, which was released from this site on 1st December.

The Long Way Round mixes elements of soul, blues and country into a summery rock sound influenced by Gronk’s recent travels on the east coast of America. ‘Good Morning Carolina’ and ‘Wanderlust’ take in sunrise and sunset on the Outer Banks; ‘Going To The Festival’ is a Nashville pastiche with rootin’-tootin’ horns; ‘Sixes & Sevens’ documents the transatlantic flight from hell. Only ‘The Long Way Round’ offers the usual Gronk element of introspection, addressing the struggle to stay afloat in normal life that can sometimes seem insuperable.

Gronk recorded and produced the album on a laptop in London and New York, playing most of the instruments and enlisting help from friends and drum machines when needed. To recreate the songs live he has formed The Body Doubles, an eight-piece rock ‘n’ roll band complete with trumpeter and female singers, which is currently gigging in noted London venues including Barfly and Water Rats. The Body Doubles will head into the recording studio in the spring.

That Gronk & the Body Doubles already have new material is a testament to its leader’s restless creativity and relentless, infuriating genre-hopping. In fact, early demos for 2010’s solo follow-up to The Long Way Round, already surfacing on Gronk's MySpace site, have the kind of lonely chill-out dance sound normally found on a Warp Records release. In other words, different again.