The Listener

RESTOCK. Welcome to the mind of Howe Gelb. Howe’s new cd, The Listener, is a peek at yet another stirring image from Howe, who has for more than two decades painted with a canvas of music and words. While both often times seemed to defy any sequential logic, it’s hard to argue with a career that through it’s many incarnations- Band of Blacky Ranchette, Giant Sand, OP8, to name but few-has remained vibrant and vital, always taking chances along the way. The Listener is no different. It focuses on Howe’s recent sojourn to Denmark where he lived for half of 2002 and recorded the bulk of The Listener. Making the journey so that he could be with his wife as she prepared to give birth to their second child offered Howe the opportunity to create away from his usual supporting cast in Tucson. Home, however, was never that far away, just a flip of a letter as noted above. It would be to Tucson he would return, yet the effects of this new location and the events surrounding why he was there had a profound effect on him, his music, his words and possibly now you -- The Listener.