Saline Grace is:

the new project of Ricardo Hoffmann, who is known as the composer and poet of the German avant-garde band Nobility Of Salt. Supported by his long-term bass player and companion through life, Ines Pollok, the amazing multi-instrumentalist and singer presents his first solo album, called “Border Town Shades”.
Strongly influenced by the works of Dostoevsky, Kafka and Bukowski, Ricardo Hoffmann has written claustrophobicly profound songs about desperation and the blackest depths of misery, candle-lit rooms full of tragedies, forlorn sinners and deceptive roads which are surrounded by broken telegraph poles, low-hanging wires, sadness and peculiarly grown trees, leading into nowhere and failure. He also tells us about the human’s eternal yearning for deliverance and his hope for God’s doubtful mercy, presenting now with Saline Grace a 17-track-album of incredibly emotional depth.
On “Border Town Shades” his extraordinarily filigree guitar style has been woven into antiques such as piano, organ, banjo and marimba, building up together with Ines Pollok’s powerful bass, admonishing bells and stylishly played drums a remarkable mixture of Americana, psychedelic and folklore of
old Eastern Europe which creates an oppressively sinister atmosphere.
Within the centre of this soundscape, in the tradition of Nick Cave, And Also The Trees, Woven Hand or Leonard Cohen stands ominously, full of urgency and often with amazing warmth the marvellously narrative voice of Ricardo Hoffmann, who, like creeping out of the human psyche’s repressed depths, sometimes supported by means of using choirs, knows to celebrate his fateful tales and philosophic poems.
Indeed, with “Border Town Shades” Saline Grace seems to roam a sinister valley on a rain soaked, covered wagon whose wheels pass through that muddy soil, where Nick Cave once laid down The Carny’s old nag named Sorrow.

Border Town Shades - Tracklist: 01. Those Sinister Lands 02. Mercy And Deliverance 03. In My Room 04. A Good Man’s Shadow 05. Border Town Shades 06. Stumbling Mary And The Tree At The Dry Riverbed 07. Stream 08. Theresa The Sinking 09. Nightly Sea 10. Mercy 2 11. Endless 12. The Valley 13. Crossing Trails 14. Rudderless Raft 15. From The Fruit Of The Womb, The Liveliness And The Fatigue 16. Last Day Of September
17. Bird Song

Biography Ricardo Hoffmann, born 1975 in the eastern border town of Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, is composer, poet, singer and multi-instrumentalist by trade.
Musically influenced by Nick Cave, And Also The Trees and The Doors, he founded his first band project in 1994, becoming two years later in 1996 the avant-garde band Nobility Of Salt. In 1997 the band released a first demo-tape, “The Evening Prayer”, and moved to London, playing numerous UK-gigs which left appropriate traces on a further demo-tape, “Through Clouds And Thoughtul Years”, in 1998.
At the beginning of 2000 and after three years’ residence in Britain, the band worked on their first album in Berlin, Germany, releasing “The Tremulous Sea” a few months later. After releasing the EP “The Silent Ship” in 2002 and a further critically acclaimed album release called "Those Narrow Streets" in 2004, Ricardo Hoffmann put his regular band on ice to work under the project name Saline Grace on his first solo album.
On this occasion he was supported by his long-term bass player and companion through life, Ines Pollok, who was born in 1976 in Frankfurt (Oder) as well. Joining the regular band Nobility Of Salt in 1996, the young lady shared the musical trail, her fate as well as the inspirations with Ricardo Hoffmann.
Distributed by motion FX/Radar Music, the new Saline Grace album “Border Town Shades” has been released by Deeper Waters Records on the 1st of September 2007.