Over the course of his forty-plus years career in music, David Grubbs stands out as sort of an unlikely journeyman. His work spans the sweaty post-hardcore of early band Squirrel Bait, the radical experiments of his highly influential group Gastr Del Sol, and the deconstructed singer-songwriter music of his early solo work. Yet, his forward-thinking approach seems less rooted in ambition or polymathic desire, and is more a condition of a genuine sense of curiosity that often manifests in very subtly oft-kilter music. Grubbs’ most recent release, Whistle From Above, is a testament to this dynamic, a contemplative work that finds abstraction in tranquility, and vice versa.
Whistle is Grubbs’ first solo album since 2017’s Creep Mission, and over the course of the past eight years much of Grubbs’ work has focused on collaborations with fellow travelers in genre-defying experimentalism such as Taku Unami, Loren Connors and Alan Courtis, as well as writing three books. Last year, after reconnecting with former bandmate Jim O’Rourke, the two released a collection of unheard Gastr Del Sol recordings, We Have Dozens of Titles. This was a pleasant surprise from two musicians who have not made much time for looking back, but the experience seems to have been invigorating for both of them. One can hear that sense of introspection factoring into Whistle From Above, which calls back to Grubbs’ previous work while still standing alone as a work in and of itself.
This can be heard on the opening title track, a meditative guitar sketch with characteristic harmonium flourishes and a lovely fluttering cello part contributed by the Greek improviser Nikos Veliotis. The sound collage ‘Later in the Tapestry Room’ opens with warm layers of turntable hiss, acoustic guitar and violin before being overtaken by abstract computer textures that call to mind the glitchier elements on Gastr’s Upgrade and Afterlife. The track occupies a peculiar place on the record, as none of the other tracks delve into that level of electroacoustic mysteriousness. It speaks to a certain weirdness lurking beneath the album’s meditative air.
One of the clear takeaways from this record is that Grubbs was able to bring out some remarkable contributions from his collaborators. ‘The Snake on Its Tail’, an ominous post-rock type track, features regular collaborators Andrea Belfi on drums and Nate Wooley on trumpet. Belfi’s textural approach to percussion is a perfect fit for this kind of music, and Wooley’s trumpet playing just soars over the piece’s dramatic crescendo. ‘Hung in the Sky of the Mind’, which features Grubbs on piano and Welsh improviser Rhodri Davies on harp, is a clear highlight of the record. The two have surprisingly never collaborated before, but Davies – an artist whose work mostly represents the most oblique and reductionist elements of contemporary improvised music who is also perfectly capable of making unabashedly pretty and melodic music – perfectly complements Grubbs’ artistic sensibilities. As a whole, Whistle From Above is a meticulously crafted record that emanates a patchwork charm, a truly hypnotic gem that rewards repeated listens.
