RELEASE DATE: SEPT 2!
GIANT SAND - proVISIONS
First Giant Sand Album in 4 Years Due Out Sept. 2
Experimental Americana pioneer Howe Gelb to release new Giant Sand album, proVISIONS, September 2
Tucson, Arizona-based musician Howe Gelb will release the first Giant Sand album in nearly four years proVISIONS on September 2, 2008. The work will feature friends such as Isobell Campbell, Neko Case and M. Ward.
"Giant Sand is a mood," says Howe Gelb. The creative force behind the extended family that has comprised Giant Sand over the years, speaks of "yippity and happenstance" that arise to inspire the soundscape that is Giant Sand. The musical family tree of the Tucson, AZ group is long and illustrious, beginning in 1980 as The Giant Sandworms and later spawning bands like Calexico, The Friends of Dean Martinez and OP8.
Howe Gelb has steadily amassed a prolific catalog of Giant Sand and solo material that spans the wealth of southwestern roots and lo-fi. Thick with musings scattered by desert winds, and soaked with eroding guitars and dusty piano, proVISIONS sonically explores love and loss in the socio-political climate of the modern world.
This incarnation of Giant Sand is comprised of Gelb, Danish musicians Thoger T. Lund (bass), Peter Dombernowsky (drums) and Anders Pedersen (slide guitar). It features talented friends/collaborators such as Neko Case, M. Ward, Isobell Campbell, Henriette Sennenvaldt, Lucie Idlout and Lonna Kelley.
A creeping cruise down a dark desert highway, these proVISIONS provide for the furthering ride of Giant Sand's completely unique sonic legacy.
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bio
THIS IS EROSION ROCK: Inaccurately yet affectionately
dubbed “the Godfather of Alt. Country†by the British
press, Tucson, Arizona-based musician Howe Gelb has
remained the sole epicenter and creative force behind
the ever-fluid configurations of Giant Sand for over a
quarter century, giving birth along the way to an
extended musical family tree that fostered the likes
of The Band of…Blacky Ranchette, The Friends of Dean
Martinez, OP8, and Calexico.
"Giant Sand is a mood," explained Howe, as if to
simplify the dizzying breadth of his prolific output
as an artist. With an impressive catalog of material
that stretches back to 1983, he can easily claim some
40 albums to his credentials as both a band leader and
a solo performer, each of which maintains its own
genre-defying singularity while also drawing on the
not-so disparate threads of country, southwestern
roots, lo-fi, jazz, and punk--or the “yippity and
happenstance“ that arises to inspire the soundscape of
whatever project Gelb is involved in creating.
But Howe’s initial signposts were planted crookedly in
Pennsylvania during the 1970s, among them being the
rock opera ZEQE 24,088 which was recorded in 3 hours
at a PBS radio station. In 1972, when floodwaters
claimed his hometown and family house, ultimately
sending him downstream to Arizona alongside the debris
of his parents’ divorce, the song “Steadfast†was born
as an articulation of that disaster. Soon upon
arriving in Tucson, he met his sonic soul mate in the
guitarist Rainer Ptacek, and as a result the two went
on to form the Giant Sandworms. After releasing only
a handful of singles and recordings, the worms were
finally put to rest, making room for Giant Sand to
bubble comfortably from the soil by the early 1980s.
From that time on, in one manifestation or another, an
album of Howe’s music has been recorded and delivered
every 4 to 8 months.
Now following a nearly four year hiatus, Giant Sand
returns with the release of proVISIONS on September 2,
2008. Produced by Howe and Kent Olsen (Arizona Amp
and Alternator, Marie Frank), the album’s 13 tracks
were recorded during a summer in Denmark, and features
the Danish musicians Thoger T. Lund (bass), Peter
Dombernowsky (drums), and Anders Pedersen (slide
guitar). As with past incarnations of the band, the
current lineup utilizes a more natural form of
playing, relying heavily on improvisation and “on the
fly“ problem solving, as well as exploring melodic
variations within Howe’s songs.
Also lending themselves to the casual mix are a host
of talented friends/collaborators--such as Neko Case,
M. Ward, Isobell Campbell, Henriette Sennenvaldt,
Lucie Idlout and Lonna Kelley--all of whom ease warmly
into the passenger seat to ride shotgun for a while on
an album thick with musings scattered by the desert
winds and soaked with eroding guitars or dusty piano.
Providing an alternate route around box-store labels
like “Alt. Country†while ruminating on love and loss
in the socio-political climate of a modern world at
odds with itself, proVISIONS is a creeping cruise
down a dark desert highway, forging another surprising
and welcome byway in the completely unique musical
legacy of Giant Sand.
~Mitch Cullin
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Howe Gelb by John Parish
You know sometimes you hear a song for the first time & it clicks so immediately that it's then impossible to imagine that it hasn't always existed - "Classico" from the new Giant Sand album is a perfect example. I've recorded this song three times in a year - the two versions that bookend Map & a third by Italian legend Nada for her new album, Tutto L'amore Che Mi Manca. Howe's lyrics on" Classico" and throughout the new record are typically unique, ranging from laugh out loud to painfully poignant, hitting all points bizarre in between. If there were only one person allowed to contribute further to the over-stocked pool of recorded music on this planet it should be Howe Gelb.
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Howe Gelb is the Kevin Bacon of the Southwest. Chances are, every musician in the region is connected to him in six degrees or less. He formed Giant Sand, which then spawned OP8, Calexico, the Friends of Dean Martinez, Band of Blanky Ranchette, and Arizona Amp and Alternator. He's worked with Neko Case, Richard Buckner, Scout Niblett, Steve Wynn, Julie Doiron, Evan Dando, Via Tania, and John Parish. He passed along a demo tape of a then-unknown Grandaddy to V2.
~pitchforkmedia.com
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