Biography
For nearly two decades Howe Gelb quietly generated recordings that drew only a modest cult audience, yet wider appreciation of his output arrived later. Giant Sand, the band he led, issued its debut album Valley of Rain in 1985; although a small circle of committed listeners valued his singular artistic outlook and dreamlike lyricism, meaningful attention arrived only with the 2000 appearance of Chore of Enchantment. While Giant Sand’s recordings typically inhabit a spare, arid atmosphere situated between roots rock and Southwestern psychedelia, Gelb’s solo work spans a wider range. His ever-shifting impulses produced the lo-fi indie rock of Hisser in 1998, the eccentric singer/songwriter excursions of Confluence in 2001, the jazzy introspection of The Listener in 2003, the mutated gospel of 'Sno Angel Like You in 2006, and the dusty supper-club crooning of Future Standards in 2016. Gelb has also partnered with numerous noted musicians, among them several releases under the OP8 name that featured violinist and songwriter Lisa Germano; through these associations he helped give rise to the celebrated indie outfits Calexico and Friends of Dean Martinez.
The first version of Giant Sand, originally known as the Giant Sandworms, took shape in 1980 alongside longtime friend Rainer Ptacek. Like most early configurations, that lineup proved short-lived amid repeated personnel shifts. In 1985 Gelb guided a fresh quartet, which included future Friends of Dean Martinez drummer Tom Larkin, into the studio to cut Valley of Rain, the group’s official debut as Giant Sand, for four hundred dollars. Further changes continued until 1988, when Gelb briefly stabilized the unit as a trio with bassist Paula Brown, his first wife who had joined the previous year, and drummer John Convertino. Although Gelb and Brown separated in 1989, Convertino remained and later formed one-third of Giant Sand’s most enduring lineup. The final member arrived in 1991 with the addition of Joey Burns. This trio tracked Ramp in 1991, Center of the Universe in 1992, Purge & Slouch in 1993, and Glum in 1994, sets that alternated driving rock passages with spare acoustic sketches.
In subsequent years the extended network surrounding Giant Sand grew ever more intricate. Convertino and Burns began their own project Calexico while co-founding Friends of Dean Martinez. Gelb kept a relatively low profile, issuing live and archival material on Goods and Services, Backyard Barbecue Broadcast, and Official Bootleg Series, Vol. 1, all from 1995. He contributed piano and organ to the Friends’ debut The Shadow of Your Smile in 1995 and joined an illustrious ensemble for Richard Buckner’s striking Devotion + Doubt album in 1997. In 1998 V2 issued Gelb’s first official solo outing, the ethereal, lo-fi home-studio project Hisser.
The 1997 death of close friend Ptacek from cancer occurred just months before Gelb was scheduled to begin the next Giant Sand record, plunging him into emotional turmoil. Early sessions in Tucson, held at the same studio where he had worked with Ptacek weeks earlier, proved largely unproductive. After three producers, John Parish, Jim Dickinson, and Kevin Salem, Gelb completed Chore of Enchantment, only for V2 to reject the album; Chicago’s Thrill Jockey ultimately released what became, against considerable odds, one of Gelb’s most unified collections. Chore drew upon the widest sonic palette he had yet employed, moving fluidly from the relaxed grooves of “X-tra Wide” to the mounting rock drive of “Satellite.” By the close of the 1990s Gelb appeared less dependent on Giant Sand as a vehicle than at any prior point and inaugurated his own Ow Om imprint, whose Internet and mail-order operations handled discs from the Official Bootleg Series.
Throughout 2000 Gelb toured extensively, shaping an increasingly improvisational live presentation that incorporated set-list-free performances, a Walkman supplying fragments of earlier shows, and a looping device rated at eighty-two-percent accuracy to augment his large catalog. Both onstage and in the studio he increasingly welcomed such chance elements. At the turn of the millennium the songwriter seemed more active than ever, preparing a series of projects that included a set of solo piano instrumentals and a new album for Thrill Jockey. The latter, conceived as the successor to the intimate Hisser, surfaced in early 2001 under the title Confluence and revealed a sound closer to Giant Sand than any of his previous solo efforts. That same year saw the release of Lull, a collection of piano pieces.
Gelb reappeared in 2003 with the comparably restrained Listener album and followed with Arizona Amp and Alternator in 2005, a set featuring collaborations with M. Ward and Scout Niblett. 'Sno Angel Like You, an album steeped in gospel influences, emerged in March 2006 and was reissued by Fire Records in 2016. Over the next five years he toured both alone and with Giant Sand, which issued Provisions in 2008 and Blurry Blue Mountain in 2010. In spring 2011 Gelb finally delivered another solo album, Alegrias, which presented the songwriter fronting a collective of Andalusian Gypsy flamenco musicians, among them guitarist extraordinaire Raimundo Amador, performing under the name A Band of Gypsies. Recorded on a rooftop in Cordoba, Spain, the album appeared on Fire Records amid the label’s extensive Giant Sand reissue campaign. Gelb produced KT Tunstall’s Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon, released in spring 2013, and later that autumn his own The Coincidentalist surfaced on New West.
His subsequent project placed him in an entirely collaborative, supportive capacity alongside the Viennese experimental trio Radian, consisting of guitarist Martin Siewert, drummer Martin Brandlmayr, and bassist John Norman. Across four open-ended sessions in Europe the Tucson musician supplied piano, acoustic guitars, and vocals to the group’s compositions; Radian Verses Howe Gelb appeared on the band’s label in November 2014. In February 2016 Gelb issued a statement announcing his retirement of Giant Sand and declared of forthcoming work, “Piano for now. Songs forever.” He kept that promise with Future Standards, issued in November 2016, an engaging collection of understated songs centered on his smoky vocals and piano playing. A companion volume, Further Standards, followed in November 2017 with vocalist Lonna Kelley joining him. Gelb revived the Giant Sand name in 2018 for Returns to Valley of Rain, a re-recording of the songs from the band’s 1985 debut. Yet he also continued to explore the intimate appeal of solo work; on 2019’s Gathered he crooned through a sequence of covers and originals that included guest appearances from M. Ward, Anna Karina, Pieta Brown, and Kira Skov.
The first version of Giant Sand, originally known as the Giant Sandworms, took shape in 1980 alongside longtime friend Rainer Ptacek. Like most early configurations, that lineup proved short-lived amid repeated personnel shifts. In 1985 Gelb guided a fresh quartet, which included future Friends of Dean Martinez drummer Tom Larkin, into the studio to cut Valley of Rain, the group’s official debut as Giant Sand, for four hundred dollars. Further changes continued until 1988, when Gelb briefly stabilized the unit as a trio with bassist Paula Brown, his first wife who had joined the previous year, and drummer John Convertino. Although Gelb and Brown separated in 1989, Convertino remained and later formed one-third of Giant Sand’s most enduring lineup. The final member arrived in 1991 with the addition of Joey Burns. This trio tracked Ramp in 1991, Center of the Universe in 1992, Purge & Slouch in 1993, and Glum in 1994, sets that alternated driving rock passages with spare acoustic sketches.
In subsequent years the extended network surrounding Giant Sand grew ever more intricate. Convertino and Burns began their own project Calexico while co-founding Friends of Dean Martinez. Gelb kept a relatively low profile, issuing live and archival material on Goods and Services, Backyard Barbecue Broadcast, and Official Bootleg Series, Vol. 1, all from 1995. He contributed piano and organ to the Friends’ debut The Shadow of Your Smile in 1995 and joined an illustrious ensemble for Richard Buckner’s striking Devotion + Doubt album in 1997. In 1998 V2 issued Gelb’s first official solo outing, the ethereal, lo-fi home-studio project Hisser.
The 1997 death of close friend Ptacek from cancer occurred just months before Gelb was scheduled to begin the next Giant Sand record, plunging him into emotional turmoil. Early sessions in Tucson, held at the same studio where he had worked with Ptacek weeks earlier, proved largely unproductive. After three producers, John Parish, Jim Dickinson, and Kevin Salem, Gelb completed Chore of Enchantment, only for V2 to reject the album; Chicago’s Thrill Jockey ultimately released what became, against considerable odds, one of Gelb’s most unified collections. Chore drew upon the widest sonic palette he had yet employed, moving fluidly from the relaxed grooves of “X-tra Wide” to the mounting rock drive of “Satellite.” By the close of the 1990s Gelb appeared less dependent on Giant Sand as a vehicle than at any prior point and inaugurated his own Ow Om imprint, whose Internet and mail-order operations handled discs from the Official Bootleg Series.
Throughout 2000 Gelb toured extensively, shaping an increasingly improvisational live presentation that incorporated set-list-free performances, a Walkman supplying fragments of earlier shows, and a looping device rated at eighty-two-percent accuracy to augment his large catalog. Both onstage and in the studio he increasingly welcomed such chance elements. At the turn of the millennium the songwriter seemed more active than ever, preparing a series of projects that included a set of solo piano instrumentals and a new album for Thrill Jockey. The latter, conceived as the successor to the intimate Hisser, surfaced in early 2001 under the title Confluence and revealed a sound closer to Giant Sand than any of his previous solo efforts. That same year saw the release of Lull, a collection of piano pieces.
Gelb reappeared in 2003 with the comparably restrained Listener album and followed with Arizona Amp and Alternator in 2005, a set featuring collaborations with M. Ward and Scout Niblett. 'Sno Angel Like You, an album steeped in gospel influences, emerged in March 2006 and was reissued by Fire Records in 2016. Over the next five years he toured both alone and with Giant Sand, which issued Provisions in 2008 and Blurry Blue Mountain in 2010. In spring 2011 Gelb finally delivered another solo album, Alegrias, which presented the songwriter fronting a collective of Andalusian Gypsy flamenco musicians, among them guitarist extraordinaire Raimundo Amador, performing under the name A Band of Gypsies. Recorded on a rooftop in Cordoba, Spain, the album appeared on Fire Records amid the label’s extensive Giant Sand reissue campaign. Gelb produced KT Tunstall’s Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon, released in spring 2013, and later that autumn his own The Coincidentalist surfaced on New West.
His subsequent project placed him in an entirely collaborative, supportive capacity alongside the Viennese experimental trio Radian, consisting of guitarist Martin Siewert, drummer Martin Brandlmayr, and bassist John Norman. Across four open-ended sessions in Europe the Tucson musician supplied piano, acoustic guitars, and vocals to the group’s compositions; Radian Verses Howe Gelb appeared on the band’s label in November 2014. In February 2016 Gelb issued a statement announcing his retirement of Giant Sand and declared of forthcoming work, “Piano for now. Songs forever.” He kept that promise with Future Standards, issued in November 2016, an engaging collection of understated songs centered on his smoky vocals and piano playing. A companion volume, Further Standards, followed in November 2017 with vocalist Lonna Kelley joining him. Gelb revived the Giant Sand name in 2018 for Returns to Valley of Rain, a re-recording of the songs from the band’s 1985 debut. Yet he also continued to explore the intimate appeal of solo work; on 2019’s Gathered he crooned through a sequence of covers and originals that included guest appearances from M. Ward, Anna Karina, Pieta Brown, and Kira Skov.
Albums
Weathering Some Piano
2024
Radian Verses Howe Gelb
2023
The Coincidentalist / Dust Bowl
2022
Alegrías (10th Anniversary Edition)
2021
Gathered
2019
The Coincidentalist
2013
The Listener
2012
Alegrías
2012
'Sno Angel + Melted Wires
2011
'Sno Angel Like You + 'Sno Angel Winging It
2006
Confluence
2001
Hisser
1998
Dreaded Brown Recluse
1993
Ramp
1991
Singles
