The Plain Where the Palace Stood
In plain and stately tones, a legacy is repossessed and a guitar tone is unleashed once again. Pop experiments with pop. Not all mid-life crises have to be so gauche, you know? This album is a class act — college credit will apply.
David Grubbs' latest album sees the Gastr Del Sol founder joined by C. Spencer Yeh on violin, drummer/composer Andrea Belfi, and guitarist Stefano Pilia, who are given generous room to operate within Grubbs' open-ended, elliptical playing style.
Working for decades in the fields of improvisation and experimental rock, there's a tendency in some press circles for David Grubbs' solo albums to be referred to as his "pop" material.
The second song on David Grubbs’ first full-length in five years, I Started to Live When My Barber Died, is a playful meditation on the creative potency of relinquishing control. Characteristically, it’s a sentiment tinged with irony and ambivalence: throughout Grubbs’ career, his work has sought to combine obsessive attention to detail with the magic of improvisation and chance.