Quick Hit Album : Giant Sand – Glum

Here’s an album that I absolutely dig. I know exactly how I came to find these guys.  Like you good people that turn me onto new music with your takes I saw a review in my local rag by a reviewer I trusted ( the name will come to me eventually. I want to get it right and give credit ). So what lazy ass CB is going to do is pull some quotes from the original review that I still have.

“Places you’d like to hang out: Tangier in the late 50’s, Paris in the early 20’s, Howe Gelb’s house anytime.”

“For the last 10 years (written in 1994) Gelb and drummer John Convertino have made some of the finest American music committed to tape. Gelb’s idiosyncratic electric guitar style and endearing nasal monotone combining in primitive splendor to produce a sound one astute writer described as ” guitar strings the size of transatlantic cable plucked with loose chunks of floor tile and sung in a borderline psychotic drawl” IE Neil- After the Gold Rush. Howe – After the Breakdown.”

“For those who like Neil Young’s more extreme moments, enjoy feedback with a light Latin beat, believe Lou Reed reached his peak with the guitar solo on ‘I Heard Her Call My Name’ and think ‘Hard Rain’ is a great Bob Dylan album. Recommended.”

Those words prompted CB to get the record. I liked it right away. I’ve been listening to them ever since. Like Monk they don’t play it straight. They mix it up. I like the whole package with Howe’s word play getting into my cranium. Can’t say how much I like this music and their other recordings (Howe has mellowed and does a more country twang thing now. Out there country like it should be played). CB loves music (things) outside the box especially when it’s good.

Give GS and Howe some time and you might grow to like the music as much as I do.  So if you listen to the song below you will hear exactly what CB heard when he first put the needle down. Make sure you have the volume turned up from the beginning.   I love it and listen to it a lot.  They really do it their way.  If this is a little raunchy try another record, he only has a truck load of them.