Gregory & The Hawk is a project led by the captivating vocal talents of native New Yorker Meredith Godreau, who has been performing under said moniker to massive DIY success for five years now. In what is a staggering accomplishment for an artist without a label, manager or booking agent, she’s sold in excess of 15,000 self-released singles, bringing about a groundswell of support on the internet that has resulted in over 17 pages of fans covering her songs on YouTube, also receiving around 60 fan letters a week – half of these from the UK.

FatCat stumbled upon Godreau completely by chance at Brooklyn’s Southpaw one evening, and were held rapt (along with the rest of the audience). A month later she was in the studio working on what would become ‘Moenie and Kitchi’, which following a number of self-released works will be her first album for the label.

The name Gregory And The Hawk was conceived in 2003, initially devised to avoid her being perceived or pigeonholed as a female singer-songwriter (though perhaps ironically, when pressed for a list of influences Godreau cites Nick Drake, Liz Phair and PJ Harvey). She played alone under that name for a few years, until meeting Mike McGuire in New York in 2005. The two played live shows together for several months before teaming up with bassist Jeff Ratner and drummer Adam Christgau (both of New York band Paper And Sand). The four of them recorded the ‘Boats And Birds EP’, which they self-released in 2006. Soon after, the four friends moved apart, and so Meredith began playing live with just Jeff on upright bass, and herself on acoustic guitar and vocals. This was how she played most of the shows to support the debut album ‘In Your Dreams’, again self-released in 2007. The only players on this recording were Meredith, Mike McGuire and Susan Ambrose.

The recording of ‘Moenie and Kitchi’ was somewhat different; while Mike, Susan and a host of others contributed, many of the instruments were played by the album's producer, Adam Pierce (Mice Parade), with the majority of vocals and guitars recorded simultaneously in just one take. The resultant album is one both gentle and quietly fierce, often in the same song; from the rolling, shuffling drums upon which the opening ‘Oats We Sow’ sets forth through the dramatic ebbs and surges of ‘Wild West’ and propulsive brass / electric guitars that mark ‘Ghost’, the whole affair held together by Godreau’s silken, expressive tones. Idiosyncratic and hook-filled, the album heralds the arrival of a genuine and irresistible talent.