carnival ride is now available!

We -- Barry Gray and Isabel Valls -- are a singer songwriter duo whose voices blend in harmony and whose acoustic guitar styles perfectly complement each other. Originally drawn together by our shared love of acoustic music from the 60s and 70s, we write and perform original songs together. We are currently working on our first album.

Barry Gray's family band, Graymatter, is a Triad and Triangle, NC favorite, performing 60s and 70s covers in four-part harmony. Barry is also a member of the Wes Collins band (among other distinctions, Wes is a winner of Kerrville's prestigious Grassy Hills New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters). In 2018, Barry was awarded a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Songwriting, which led him to record his debut album, Footsteps. 

Isabel Valls has been performing since 2010, when she began playing at area open mics. She has released two albums of her original songs under her former name, Taylor: Awake Again (2016) and Isabel Taylor (2019). Both albums secured the 15th spot on the Folk Radio chart.

Their solo albums were produced by award-winning musician Jon Shain and engineered by FJ Ventre at Good Luck Studio in Chapel Hill, NC.

Their new release, Carnival Ride, is co-produced, recorded, and mixed by FJ Ventre.