Tucson desert rat Howe (the “e” is silent) Gelb has been making his idiosyncratic music since about 1980, when he formed Giant Sand Worms with the German guitarist Rainer Ptacek. Through the 1990s, Giant Sand included Gelb on guitar, piano and vocals, with Joey Burns on double bass and John Convertino on drums, with a guest list that reads like a who’s who of American indie music. Burns and Convertino’s side project, Calexico, has turned into a full-time job for those two, so Gelb re-formed Giant Sand with musicians he’s been playing with in his wife’s homeland, Denmark. 2004’s …Is All Over the Map is the first Giant Sand disc to feature this new outfit exclusively, although guitarist Anders Pedersen, bassist Thoger T. Lund and drummer Peter Dombernowsky played on about half of the tracks on 2003’s sublime Gelb solo disc, The Listener.
Map has all of the elements Gelb’s fans have come to expect from another excursion into the world of Giant Sand. There are acoustic ballads, punk rave-ups, punkabilly romps, loping blues-rock, a tango, and piano instrumentals that range from rags to Phillip Glass style prepared piano works. And lyrics that range from heart-rending poetry to absurdist non-sequiturs.
Gelb sing-speaks the lovely acoustic ballad “Cracklin Water,” in his trademark sotto voce style, with vocal backing from Marie Frank. A 1999 winner of the Danish equivalent of the Grammy, Frank also lends her lightly accented harmonies to several other tracks. On this song, she lends a particular poignancy to Gelb’s refrain: “Here on earth … you hide from the rain, and the wind you must trust; here on earth it’s all dust to dust.” Add some lap steel moans from co-producer John Parish, and you’ve got a perfect Giant Sand song. “There’s levity in brevity, I suppose,” he deadpans in the refrain of “Fool,” a clattering blues with Frank again on backup and Parish playing a Mellotron of all things. “Napoli” has a captivating rhumba-style melody and beat, with lots of guitar, piano and bongos; it contrasts his Arizona homeland with what he finds in Italy: “Back home, the desert is deserted/the heart turns to stone, and the eyes are averted…”
Gelb indulges in lots of wordplay, particularly on “NYC of Time,” a rattling, rocking anthemic ode to New York and its continued survival in the face of attacks, and on “Remote,” a rockabilly exploration of the various meanings of the title word; Scout Niblett sings backing vocals that rise from a husky drawl to a wailing caterwaul. And on the country-western coda of the punk skronk of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchistic Bolshevistic Cowboy Bundle” (sung by Howe’s daughter Indiosa Patsy Jean Gelb), Howe sings “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Tolstoys.”
The album is bookended (more or less) by one of the most hauntingly beautiful ballads Howe has ever put to wax. The first version of “Classico” is sung by Howe in his laconic, whispery drawl; the second time, on the final track but two, the ideally matched Vic Chesnutt and Henriette Sonnenvalt interpret it. Both are adept at singing an emotionally charged song like this with barely-strangled sighs and a lilt that says, “I’m smiling through my tears.”
Though Gelb continually references popular culture, either obliquely or head-on, Giant Sand’s music is about as close to anti-pop as you’ll find. It demands much more of the listener than more standard fare, but it rewards accordingly.
(Thrill Jockey, 2004)
