DAVID GRUBBS : NEW ALBUM AND EUROPE TOUR

David Grubbs is one of the most influential musicians of his generation: a legacy that includes such bands as Squirrel Bait, Bastro and Gastr del Sol.  Moving eccentrically forward from the straight-ahead hardcore punk of Squirrel Bait (after all, he was a wizened eighteen years old when SB called it a day) David increasingly infused his songcraft with an experimental strain, culminating in the discography of Gastr del Sol, who drew widespread interest with the ways in which they combined so-called “songs” with experimental music. Participating in the reinvigorated Red Krayola during this time exposed David to the formative tutelage of Mayo Thompson as well. But after the gradually more streamlined Gastr period concluded with Camoufleur, David’s output became more segregated; the albums of pop songs were more focusedly, more cussedly pop, and the more experimental projects (including duo recordings with Mats Gustafsson, Nikos Veliotis, and Loren Connors, not to mention the entire catalog of his Blue Chopsticks label) became more unrelenting.

Flash forward to April 16th, 2013: Drag City releases the sixth and latest David Grubbs album of songs, The Plain Where the Palace Stood, which finds David once again twining together the diverse strands of his vast interests. As in the days of Gastr del Sol, songs float in idiosyncratic yet exceptionally unhurried arrangements.  The Plain Where the Palace Stood features vocals on just four of the eleven tracks, yet the album as whole flows—breathes—effortlessly alongside the most critically acclaimed releases of his great catalog, not to mention his contemporaries and kindred artists – Oren Ambarchi, Scott Walker, Talk Talk, and Sunn O))).