David Grubbs--

The Thicket

(Drag City 160)

It's no secret to anyone who reads this quaintlittle sheet of ours that I was deeply conflicted as to the worth of thelast Gastr del Sol album, in a way that only someone with way too muchfree time can be.

( I mean, I wrote something like fourdrafts of that review! It cut seriously into my drinking time! It was lifeor death! Yes! I was that fucked up!)

In the end I said that it was Jim O'Rourke's last album with David Grubbs so we might have to hang it up on the Gastr brand.The bad news is that I was right.The good news that David went out and gothisself a proper band, with John McEntire on drums, Tony Conrad on violin and Josh Abrams on bass. Plus a flŸgelhorn, because this isGrubbs and he's gonna do dumb shit like that.

The great news is that this is one ofDavid's best albums, including the old Bastro stuff, and it's goodsongs you can hum. Uh-huh.

It seems that our boys listened toO'Rourke's Bad Timing album (whaddaya mean you... just... go out and buy acopy, you twerp!) and decided to try to make some equally pleasantmusic for backroad straightaways.

And there are some genuinely pleasantpassages on here, folksy guee-tar noodling and banjo strumming and theflŸgelhorn rounding out the sound quite nicely, natch. It's notgetting in the way in any case. And Grubbs might (just might) be evidencinga sense of humor on one song, where "the wickedspace-cow upended the candle generator." 'Course, immediatelythereafter he starts talking about observing cool flames in zero-gravity,so he was probably just distracted.

Speaking of, where's the Serious Art? Does it got it? In spades, man, chill out.('Cuz, man, I'm jonesin' fer summa that art!) With a heavy hitterlike Tony Conrad around (he worked with LaMonte Young and explored thetextures of drones and so on oh dee do dah day), it's a matter of timebefore you get a plaintive, beautiful slab like the twosongs on 'Worship'. To me, they sound like awe, straight up, likedawn breaking wet over a new ocean, one note pulled with harsh but lovingcare as far as it can go.

'Course, I played it at work, andMurph the Surf asked me where I got a CD of an Emergency Broadcast Systemalarm. Bunch of god-damn yahoos where I work. It's all in the ear of thebeholder, I guess. And I know you. If you've read this much of the review, you'll like it. Because you want to.

--- T. Magill