When the "cult rocker" compendiums of the future start hitting the stands, Giant Sand svengali Howe Gelb will hopefully get his due. Known to very few, inspiring to some (fringe artists like Victoria Williams, Kristin Hersh, Vic Chesnutt, and especially Richard Buckner line up to sing his praises), unlistenable to most - Gelb's career is a testimony to leaving the tape running at all costs. His canon of fractured-roots, acid-damaged, everybody-play-something desert rock is the very definition of ramshackle, but promises glimpses of an artistic freedom few are brave enough to pursue.
Truly, Hisser probably isn't the place to start for Gelb novices. More reined-in collaborations with Calexico (GS's Center Of The Universe) and Lisa Germano (the OP8 project) provide a more varied and palatable intro to the Gelb vibe.
Hisser, so dark and burned-out as to elude description, is all Howe, sustaining a mood of solitary bleakness over 19 tracks. Aside from brief appearances by Calexico, Germano, the band Grandaddy, and a couple others, this is as sparse as sparse gets, casting Gelb's warm, parched drawl against barely-there acoustic strums and his customary sprinklings of shambolic piano.
Howe's general good humor and subtle, sage wit manage to steer the record from total morose creepsville, but the beauty to be found here (especially on the delicate steel-slide guitar patchwork of "Explore You" and similarly touching ballads "Soldier Of Fortune" and "Creeper") is always underscored by the chilling. Imagine Leonard Cohen haunted by the ghosts of Pancho & Lefty and you start to get the idea.
Several tracks here wouldn't sound out of place on the Eels' recent, brilliant hymn of loss Electro-Shock Blues. Not a coincidence - Hisser, too, comes in the wake of a friend's death; in this case, Gelb confidante Rainer Ptacek (a Texan guitarist celebrated on the recent, very good Inner Flame tribute). The liner notes state: "Him being gone is not good. These songs aren't mostly about him, but the dwell sneaks in on more than a few." And there you have it. When I saw Gelb last year, he did a solo set based somewhat on lo-fi samples of Ptacek's playing. At one point, Gelb stared at the crowd and deadpanned, "Did you ever have one of those years that just sucked?"
Hisser is an elaboration on that query. Faced with darkness, Gelb responded as he likely does to almost everything: writing more songs. Not for every day or even every week, but when you're in just the mood, Hisser's there.
--Lane Hewitt