The Séance Has Begun

Grace in Ruin is the one-man band of Brian Dale Babiak, a multi-instrumentalist and producer who writes songs like short stories. The project began as a love letter to an idealized Bauhaus—the album he heard in memory as a young listener, bolder than the era's tech. Rather than imitate recordings, Grace in Ruin composes the record those bands might have made if their tools matched their ambition.

That mission has grown into a signature blend of gothic rock, post-punk, darkwave/synthwave, and, most recently, "goth trap"—pop immediacy with trap gravity, framed by shadowed imagery.

Brian came up through piano, switched to drums as a kid (school talent shows bashing Kiss and Foreigner), then to guitar after seeing Bob Marley live in Paris right before his death—"Redemption Song" lit the fuse. Decades on guitar followed, along with bass, keyboards, harmonica, multiple string instruments, and saxophone.

He fell for computer music in the '90s—Future Sound of London, Orbital, Pete Namlook—and still lives close to Moog history in Ithaca, pulling electricity from synthesis into narrative.

Throughout, Grace in Ruin seeks intimacy in ruins: lovers crafting magic in small rooms; memory correcting history; pop hooks smuggled through the dark.