David Grubbs - Whistle From Above

‘Whistle from Above’ is David Grubbs’ first Drag City release in over a decade and his first-ever instrumental album for the label. The suspiciously youthful Grubbs is four decades into his career, with former bands including Gastr del Sol, Squirrel Bait and Bastro, along with a wild ride of collaborators including Bitch Magnet, Richard Buckner, Codeine, Tony Conrad, The Red Krayola, Royal Trux, Dirty Three, Edith Frost, Mats Gustafsson, Susan Howe, Will Oldham, Stefano Pilia, Taku Unami, The Underflow, Ryley Walker, Jan St. Werner and The Wingdale Community Singers.

‘Whistle from Above’ is the first solo collection David has released since 2017’s ‘Creep Mission’. During the 2020 shutdown, David played what he precisely quantified as “a shit-ton of guitar,” more than he could recall playing ever previously. Reinvigorated by this period of enforced woodshedding, he produced a series of new pieces, mostly for guitar, but also a piano composition and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. These seemed to imply a solo set that would tour marvellously when the time was right again.

‘Whistle from Above’ is a colourful, compulsive set of instrumental pieces in which David and his chosen collaborators, including Rodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley and Cleek Schrey, interact amid the steady roll of an expansive landscape based in the hypnosis of David’s immediately recognizable guitar style. Throughout the album, the listener may recall some places visited over the years but will find them - as David and his traveling companions have as well - changed again, reactivated in a new light.