Pitchfork

Some cynical souls might say success has gone to Howe Gelb's head like so much peyote. After more than 20 years in the biz, often dismissed as a poor-man's Meat Puppets, Gelb's Giant Sand finally scored a critical breakthrough with 2000's Chore of Enchantment. Not many bands set a new high water mark for themselves with their eleventh album, but that's exactly what Gelb & Co. did with their Neil Young-ish collection of desert hymns and ambient folkscapes.

So what does he do next? Well, first he releases a fractured collection of oddball tracks and after-show parking lot recordings called Confluence, which, like most of the Gelb/Giant Sand discography, is hit or miss at best-- the kind of album you listen to a few times through, then put on the shelf and wait for a few others like it to float through your transom before you burn your own "best of" compilation. Now, a few scant months later, along comes Lull Some Piano, a collection of 19 (mostly) solo piano compositions.

Recorded at various locations, with some dating back as far as 1988, these songs are almost completely devoid of lyrics. Giant Sand bandmates Joe Burns and John Convertino (better known to some as Calexico) turn up on a few numbers, as do some samples and loops, but the vast majority of Lull is just Howe, 88 keys, and a box.

And David Helfgott he ain't, but Howe plays better than most people probably expect. Given his fiery guitar work and corny sense of humor, I might have expected something more... I don't know, avant or experimental sounding, or at least something that would make me immediately wonder what he was thinking. Instead, Gelb keeps it nice and harmonic and proper, creating the kind of music you might play at a dinner party, which I guess is kind of risky in its own way. Gelb stays away from jazz or barrelhouse blues, preferring to stay in the classically influenced realm with a few diversions into Kurt Weill territory and that of movie soundtracks. In the end, I ended up asking myself anyway: "what was he thinking?"

Now, sure, it's possible that Lull Some Piano is just a case of ol' Howe capitalizing on his recent upswing in visibility. After all, he has almost attained indie rock "elder statesman" status by now, so he can dish out a collection of scraps and be virtually guaranteed that a relatively sizable audience will lap it up dutifully. But it should be noted that all Gelb/Giant Sand releases over the last decade have been scraps collections at their core: Howe and his buddies hang out in their homes and studios, mess with their instruments till the sun goes down (or comes up), and then sift through the reels and see what's there. With Chore of Enchantment, they just happened to strike gold. So, at the very least, you can't accuse the man of compromising his vision in the face of wide(r) acclaim. But that said, Lull Some Piano is surely for diehard Sandheads only. Or maybe for fans of the burgeoning indie rock dinner party scene.