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GIANT SAND

Giant Sand

Blurry Blue Mountain - 2024 Reissue

    Recorded 25 years into their career, Giant Sand’s 25th album is a gorgeous and much-celebrated collection of perfectly-crafted, personal songwriting from Howe Gelb. With the exception of one or two wonderfully abrupt and perfectly placed outbursts, it’s a gentle rollercoaster traversing the inner thinking of the why’s and wherefores of whatever, a meditation on time and the ageing process.

    Musing on the record, Howe Gelb explains “On this LP I show off an acquired appreciation for the simple lyric. Kinda haiku at times, like flamenco verse, or the blues. I can focus more as it’s obvious there’s only so much time left – that has a production value all its own.”

    Highlighting their eclectic and esoteric career, this reissue celebrates the band’s magnificent, long and winding career. This deluxe reissue features restored artwork and newly penned liner notes from MOJO’s Dave Henderson.

    Giant Sand have been the primary outlet for the stylistic curveballs and sun-damaged songcraft of singer-songwriter Howe Gelb. In four plus decades he’s managed to reinvent rock, country, blues, punk, garage, lo-fi, jazz, gospel, avant-garde noise and flamenco gypsy music with his impressionistic imagery and expansive observations of the world.

    “An album full of heart, soul, and wit, this music confirms that no one does quite what Howe Gelb can do with such remarkably innate grace and feel” AllMusic.

    TRACK LISTING

    A1 Fields Of Green
    A2 Chunk Of Coal
    A3 The Last One
    A4 Monk's Mountain
    A5 Spellbound
    A6 Ride The Rail
    A7 Lucky Star Love
    B1 Thin Line Man
    B2 No Tellin'
    B3 Brand New Swamp Thing
    B4 Erosion
    B5 Time Flies
    B6 Better Man Than Me
    B7 Love A Loser

    Giant Sand

    Chore Of Enchantment - 2024 Reissue

      Celebrating 25 years since the release of Giant Sand’s legendary ‘Chore Of Enchantment’, the panoramic masterpiece that was the turning point for the classic line-up featuring seasoned songwriter Howe Gelb and latter-day Calexico members Joey Burns and John Convertino from 1999.

      Filled with mind-bending one-liners, customary offbeat instrumentation, echo fields and hazy horizons; ‘The Chore Of Enchantment’ is a songbook of Howe Gelb’s greatest songs. The high level production by the legendary Jim Dickinson, PJ Harvey foil John Parish and acclaimed singer/songwriter/producer Kevin Salem, a tour-de-force of Gelb’s unique oeuvre.

      Highlighting their eclectic and esoteric career, this reissue celebrates the band’s magnificent, long and winding career. This 2xLP deluxe reissue features restored artwork and newly penned liner notes from MOJO’s Dave Henderson.

      “A beautiful, emotionally complex album.” The Quietus.

      Giant Sand have been the primary outlet for the stylistic curveballs and sun-damaged songcraft of singer-songwriter Howe Gelb. In four plus decades he’s managed to reinvent rock, country, blues, punk, garage, lo-fi, jazz, gospel, avant-garde noise and flamenco gypsy music with his impressionistic imagery and expansive observations of the world.

      TRACK LISTING

      A1 Overture
      A2 (Well) Dusted (For The Millenium)
      A3 Punishing Sun
      A4 X-Tra Wide
      A5 1972
      A6 Temptation Of Egg
      A7 Raw
      B1 Wolfy
      B2 Shiver
      B3 Dirty From The Rain
      B4 Astonished (In Memphis)
      B5 No Reply
      C1 Satellite
      C2 Bottom Line Man
      C3 Way To End The Day
      C4 Shrine
      D1 Astonished (In Tucson) (Bonus)
      D2 Dusted (In Tucson) (Bonus)
      D3 Shiver (In Tucson) (Bonus)
      D4 Punishing Sun (In Tucson) (Bonus)
      D5 Bad (Not Good) (Bonus)

      Giant Sand

      Heartbreak Pass - 2022 Reissue

        “Gelb's semi-surreal observations lace things together perfectly.” UNCUT

        Filled with loud and lucky abandon; heady steady and direct singalongs for the heart in constant turmoil. Giant Sand’s esoteric journey to ‘Heartbreak Pass’ is an exotic journey through hails of Youngian guitars, off-the-cuff jazz piano rounds and beautiful alt-country yearning. While containing only new songs for this album, this feels like a greatest hits and as such is a perfect entry point for Giant Sand neophytes. Fire Records give ‘Heartbreak Pass’ a long overdue repress on white vinyl, with new liner notes and updated artwork.

        There’s a roll of the tongue, a couplet and some convolution underpinning Giant Sand’s 2015 opus ‘Heartbreak Pass’. So the story goes, so legend has it, a mere 30 years into their career, almost ten years ago, Giant Sand were regrouped and, for a fleeting second, someone made sense of it all (the words, the genre swapping sound, the roll call of friends and accomplices, the majesty of polar opposites attracting).

        On ‘Heartbreak Pass’ the result from this lengthy travelogue is a memoir filled with trinkets exchanged along the way. Sure, the Arizona desert is there, gritty and unforgiving but Howe's one-man-band is joined by a throng of well-wishers, this time around including Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Grant-Lee Phillips and Ilse DeLange (Common Linnets), The Voices Of Praise Choir, oft-time collaborator John Parish, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Maggie Bjorklund on pedal steel, Italian singer/songwriter Vinicio Capossela and many more. It’s an album that travels far and shows its road weariness in places but it’s a celebration in all its ragged glory.

        In his original sleevenotes Howe pondered the fact that “The album is roughly broken into three volumes - loud and lucky abandon; heady steady and direct (Gelb's vision of Americana); and the heart in constant turmoil and something about a transponder.” He summarised: “I can't recommend it, nor do I regret it. It's been one life split into two.”

        TRACK LISTING

        A1 Heaventually
        A2 Texting Feist
        A3 Hurtin' Habit
        A4 Transponder
        A5 Song So Wrong
        A6 Every Now And Then
        A7 Man On A String
        B1 Home Sweat Home
        B2 Eye Opening
        B3 Pen To Paper
        B4 House In Order
        B5 Gypsy Candle
        B6 Done

        Giant Sand

        Ramp

          A Deluxe remastered edition of Giant Sand’s 1991 album ‘Ramp’ with a second disc featuring the Mad Dog sessions from earlier that same year. “Convertino's brush-work and Burns' upright bass provide the perfect foundation for Gelb's parched voice and chaotic guitar, and guests include Rainer, Victoria Williams and country veteran Pappy Allen. It’s one of Giant Sand's strongest and most complete albums.” The Quietus // Featuring piano lounge music for an off-world colony interrupted by an onslaught of guitar when needed, it’s light and dark and the better for it, a musical journey on a road less travelled. With Gelb’s lyrical invention to the fore: “His thoughts unfold in long, rolling sentences that don't always follow conventional rules of grammar or syntax.” The Quietus // The Tucson sound at it very best.

          TRACK LISTING

          Disc 1

          1 Warm Storm
          2 Romance Of Falling
          3 Wonder
          4 Welcome To My World
          5 AntiShadow
          6 Neon Filler
          7 Jazzer Snipe
          8 Z.Z. Quicker Foot
          9 Seldom Matters
          10 Resolver
          11 Nowhere
          12 Always Horses Coming
          13 Patsy's Blues

          Disc 2 - Live At Mad Dog Studios – 30th January 1991:

          1 Back To The Black And Grey
          2 Trickle Down System
          3 Bible Black, Book II
          4 Still Too Far
          5 Romance Of Falling
          6 Can’t Find Love
          7 Shadow To You

          Giant Sand

          Glum

            A conceptual masterpiece, complete with a second disc capturing a classic KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session just prior to the original album’s release in 1994, plus five bonus tracks available for digital download. An epic windswept desert dry encounter with one of America’s greatest bands that traverses genres and styles to create a complete masterpiece. “While the guitars still squall and roar, they're used more sparingly, erupting to devastating effect in gloomy, low-key songs.” The Quietus // Emotional and uplifting, and always thought provoking, the band’s line up of Howe Gelb, latter day Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino are joined by Victoria Williams, Pete Holsapple, Chris Cacavas, Pappy Allen and Lisa Germano, the whole shebang produced by Daniel Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. “Giant Sand move to the darker side of their emotional stew. Within is jazz, country, folk, blues even Glam, we’re led to believe the mainstay is downbeat but the result is monumental

            TRACK LISTING

            A1 Glum
            A2 Yer Ropes
            A3 Happenstance
            A4 Frontage Road
            A5 Painted Bird

            B1 1 Helvakowboy Song
            B2 Spun
            B3 Left
            B4 Faithful
            B5 Bird Song
            B6 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

            C1 World Stands Still – KCRW SESSION
            C2 I Wish You Love - KCRW SESSION
            C3 Interview - KCRW SESSION
            C4 Lester Lampshade - KCRW SESSION

            D1 Get To Leave - KCRW SESSION
            D2 Left - KCRW SESSION
            D3 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - KCRW SESSION
            D4 Interview - KCRW SESSION
            D5 Instrumental - KCRW SESSION

            Giant Sand

            Recounting The Ballads Of Thin Line Men

              It’s 33 and a third years since the seminal Giant Sand and its country cousin The Band Of… Blacky Ranchette entered the studio to lay down their second albums. Yes. Both bands had recorded their second albums each. Two sides of the multi-faceted hyper-productive Howe Gelb. “I was turning 28,” he recalls, “and had been wanting to make and release albums since my early 20s, but only recently had figured out how. It was time to make up for lost time.”

              Time was of the essence. That thin line between then and now has seen journeymen Giant Sand release 27-ish albums, their latest, ‘Recounting The Ballad Of The Thin Line Men’ turning the clock back to 1986’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Line Man’, picking over the bones and making a whole new soup. All these years on, the latest incarnation of Giant Sand: Howe Gelb (guitars, piano) Tommy Larkins (drums) and Thøger Lund (bass), have dusted off the old vinyl and re-imagined those heady days – they’ve polished these buried gems, reignited some truculent tirades and rekindled an ageless angst. The revamp re-orders the tracks, drops a couple and adds ‘Reptillian’, a previously lost song hailing from their album’s 25th anniversary re-issue, a tune that opens proceedings and basks in all its crinkly glory. There’s also two takes of ‘Tantamount’. The unique thing about Giant Sand’ is they make it all their own, they sound like no-one else. The songs remain the same, but somehow completely different. Howe: “We were a fine storm. The greatest storm in terms of tumultuous velocity and pelting bluster. It proved unstoppable... for a minute”.

              TRACK LISTING

              1 Reptillian
              2 Hard Man To Get To Know
              3 Desperate Man
              4 You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory
              5 Tantamount
              6 Who Am I
              7 Body Of Water
              8 Graveyard
              9 The Chill Outside
              10 Thin Line Man
              11 Tantamount Blast (Bonus Track)


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