Ramp (album)

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Ramp
Studio album by Giant Sand
Label (s) Restless Records (USA), Rough Trade Records (Europe)

Format (s)

LP, MC, CD

Genre (s)

Alternative country

Title (number)

11 to 14 depending on the issue

running time

varies by edition

occupation
  • Vocals / guitar / keyboards: Howe Yellow
  • E-bass / vocals: Paula Jean Brown
  • Electric bass: Joey Burns
  • Drums: John Convertino

production

Howe Yellow, Dusty Wakeman

Studio (s)

Mad Dog Studios, Venice Beach , Westwood Studios, Tucson

chronology
Swerve
(1990) 		Ramp Center of the Universe
(1992)

Ramp (English for " Rampe ") is the seventh album of the Tucson band project Giant Sand around Howe Gelb. It was released in 1991 and is regarded as a high point of creativity alongside the successor Center of the Universe , not least because of the newly added bassist Joey Burns, who together with drummer John Convertino, despite their Calexico founding 1996 to 2002, formed the stable rhythm section .

Music genre

Der Spiegel described thestyle performedon Ramp as a "mixture of country & western guitar, hoarse Bob Dylan singing and the occasional excursion to jazz ". The hi-fi magazine Audio heard from the mix "Country, Jazz, Pop and Rock". EB / Metronom described it as a “wonderful bizarre musical landscape” made up of classic country music and modern country rock .

Romance of Falling has been described as "haunting rocker with a touching chorus". In addition, the attributes "anthemic" and "gnarled" were dropped . In addition to this piece, the website adequacy.net also called Warm Storm a "rock incarnation". Wonder was characterized as "solemn, sensitive", "happy" and "amazed", Welcome to My World as "plaintive", "touching" and "passionate". In "nuscheligen" jazzman Snipe were reminiscences of Thelonious Monk discovered.

Shadow to You is "rocking" again. Neon Filler is "gospel-like" or rather reminiscent of "Seventies LA piano pop", according to reviews . Seldom Matters is moving closer to “ bluegrass ” or is a “country ballad”. The “country blues sing-along song” Nowhere was perceived as “wistful” by thequietus.com . This website was the only one to comment on Always Horses Coming and Patsy's Blues, which were later added to the album . The former is a "cool hymn" and the latter "yelp".

Guest musician

The concept of the band included the involvement of various guest musicians . On Ramp , Giant Sand co-founder Rainer Ptacek and his Dobro were used on five pieces, each accompanied by the local pedal steel guitar great Neil Harry. The guitarist Duane Jarvis, who was mentioned by Gelb in 2009, does not always appear in the credits. Dusty Wakeman, who produced the romance-of-falling track in his main role, played the additional bass for Anti-Shadow . Singer-songwriter Victoria Williams contributed the vocals to the Romance of Falling , Resolver and Nowhere Banjo . She brought two things, namely vocals and harmonica , to Seldom Matters , while she made her most extensive contribution to Wonder with voice, banjo and electric guitar . Kathleen Beaten ( Anti-Shadow ) and Darra Crouch ( Neon Filler ) made individual vocal contributions , as did the 74-year-old friend and advisor to the band Pappy Allen (he sings the Jim Reeves standard Welcome to My World , as well as a duet Yellow: Nowhere ) and as its childlike counterpart, so to speak, the little daughter of Yellow and Brown, Indiosa Patsy Jean Yellow ( Patsy's Blues ).

History of origin

In 1988 the "accomplished drummer" John Convertino joined Giant Sand, who was joined in 1990 by bassist Joey Burns - "with him Giant Sand had found the ideal line-up". Together, the trodden path to "sticky fingers country rock" was continued in the form of ramp . Recordings began at Westwood Studios in Tucson and were completed at Mad Dog Studios in Venice Beach, Los Angeles. With the exception of Romance of Falling , Howe Gelb acted as producer and mixer himself . So the songs Wonder , Welcome to My World , Seldom Matters , Resolver and Nowhere , as well as the bridges to Warm Storm and Anti-Shadow , were created in Westwood Studios, the rest in Mad Dog Studios. Yellow described the development of Warm Storm in detail : “It was a matter of recording a song live in the studio with electrically amplified instruments and inserting the acoustically recorded bridge from a DAT recorder, before going live again with the electrical part at the same speed resumed where the DAT recording stopped with a different beat. The particular difficulty was the mechanical delay that occurred when you pressed the play button. ”Short and concise, his comment on the vocal performance of a purple dinosaur by the four and a half year old daughter:“ We almost laughed each other. ”

Publications

In the USA the album was first released on Restless Records, but a year later the short-term label Amazing Black Sand took its place. In Europe , the British label Rough Trade took care of the appearance and distribution. In April 2011, a remastered LP came on the market with sales partner Cargo Records via Fire Fidelity and a remastered CD via Fire Records . You have the title suffix "25th Anniversary Edition", where this is not about the 25th anniversary of the ramp still is -Erstveröffentlichung to the 25th band anniversary, but the re-release of the first Giant Sand album Valley of Rain simply a Re-release streak triggered. The number and sequence of titles differ depending on the issue, and there are two completely different cover motifs in circulation, which in turn can differ in nuances such as the placement of the lettering or the intensity of the color.

Track list

LP first edition

Page 1:

  1. Romance of Falling (Howe Yellow) - 4:45
  2. Warm Storm (Howe Yellow, Paula Jean Brown) - 4:57
  3. Wonder (Howe Yellow) - 5:37
  4. Welcome to My World (John Hathcock, Ray Winkler) - 2:17
  5. Anti-Shadow (Howe Yellow) - 4:28
  6. Jazzer Snipe (Howe Yellow, Joey Burns, John Convertino) - 1:20

Page 2:

  1. Shadow to You (Howe Yellow) - 3:38
  2. ZZ Quicker Foot (Howe Yellow) - 5:53
  3. Neon Filler (Howe Yellow) - 4:03
  4. Seldom Matters (Howe Yellow) - 5:09
  5. Resolver (Howe Yellow) - 2:03
  6. Nowhere (Howe Yellow) - 3:20

CD editions

Restless Records 7 72599-2, USA (1991) and Rough Trade RTD 101.1243.2, D (1991)
  1. Warm Storm - 4:57
  2. Romance Of Falling - 4:45
  3. Wonder - 5:37
  4. Welcome To My World - 2:17 am
  5. Anti-Shadow - 4:28
  6. Jazzer Snipe - 1:20
  7. ZZ Quicker Foot - 5:53
  8. Neon Filler - 4:03
  9. Seldom Matters - 5:09
  10. Always Horses Coming - 2:03
  11. Patsy's Blues - 3:20
Rough Trade 2762, UK (1991)
  1. Romance Of Falling - 4:44
  2. Warm Storm - 5:00
  3. Wonder - 5:38
  4. Welcome To My World - 2:15
  5. Anti-Shadow - 4:28
  6. Jazzer Snipe - 1:16
  7. Shadow To You - 3:38
  8. ZZ Quicker Foot - 5:53
  9. Neon Filler - 4:00
  10. Seldom Matters - 5:07
  11. Resolver - 2:03
  12. Nowhere - 3:20
  13. Always Horses Coming - 5:06
  14. Patsy's Blues - 2:39
Amazing Black Sand AB CD 02, USA (1992)
  1. Warm Storm (Howe Yellow, Paula Jean Brown) - 4:57
  2. Romance of Falling (Howe Yellow) - 4:45
  3. Wonder (Howe Yellow) - 5:37
  4. Welcome to My World (John Hathcock, Ray Winkler) - 2:17
  5. Anti-Shadow (Howe Yellow) - 4:28
  6. Jazzer Snipe (Howe Yellow, Joey Burns, John Convertino) - 1:20
  7. ZZ Quicker Foot (Howe Yellow) - 5:53
  8. Neon Filler (Howe Yellow) - 4:03
  9. Seldom Matters (Howe Yellow) - 5:09
  10. Resolver (Howe Yellow) - 2:03
  11. Nowhere (Howe Yellow) - 3:20
  12. Always Horses Coming (Howe Yellow) - 5:07
  13. Patsy's Blues (Howe Yellow) - 2:37

reception

The reviewer of the Musikexpress wrote that yellow played "once again refreshingly inconsistent through all the well-guarded traditions of American music history". He strolls "on the direct connection between Neil Young and Johnny Cash [...] with distorted feedback and dreamy finger picks between sultry romance and bitter anarchy". The authenticity - literally: "RAMP smells of campfire and broad beans" - is worth 5 stars for him. The musician colleague Eric Burdon , who was interviewed as a guest critic, countered this: “An honest attempt with a lot of dropouts” and awarded 1 star. Overall, Ramp placed 10th in the 15-ranked review table .

In the mirror it was said: "Howe and his comrades have finally found straightforward, melodious songs, and suddenly it seems as if the time is very favorable for intelligent pop music with an artistic claim."

Jürgen Seibold identified a "pleasantly rough and diagonally implemented" pendulum "between country, jazz, pop and rock" in audio , which was worth 4 out of 5 possible points, along with 3 out of 5 possible points for the sound.

EB / Metronom attested the album to be a solid production with familiar trademarks . It is an “own, tasty guitar soup”, “even if it might be too spicy for one or the other”. "Behind every song" lurks "the coordinated chaos in the form of little sound gimmicks and sympathetic quirks".

For Trouser Press , Giant Sand has taken a more aggressive course with Ramp than the previously established one. For Adequacy it is one of the most important albums in Howe Gelb's long list of releases, and not just because of the ideal cast, but rather because of the compositional range that has influenced the Americana scene since then. The Quietus concludes with the conclusion: "One of Giant Sand's strongest and most impressive albums."

On the Internet platform Allmusic , Ramp is praised as the middle album of a dazzling phase. There are surprises with almost all songs and thus the album as a whole, following a hallucinogenic logic, is surprising. It jumped 4 out of 5 stars.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ laut.de , accessed on November 5, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c Anonymous: Good botch. Howe Gelb and his band Giant Sand are coming to Germany - with their latest work, the pop intellectuals want to finally make a breakthrough . In: Der Spiegel . 4/1992, p. 197.
  3. ↑ a b sei [Jürgen Seibold]: Giant Sand: Ramp . In: Audio . 2/1992, Audio plus p. 16.
  4. ↑ a b Reinhard Schielke: Giant Sand. Ramp . In: EB / metronome . No. 35 (December 1991 / January 1992), p. 56.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Stewart Smith: Strange World Of ... Drinking In The Beauty Of Howe Gelb & Giant Sand . On: The Quietus , July 22, 2010, accessed November 5, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b c d Ramp at Allmusic (English)
  7. ↑ a b c d Ira Robbins / David Sprague: Giant Sandworms / Giant Sand / Band of Blacky Ranchette / Howe Gelb / Spoke / OP8 . On: Trouser Press , accessed November 5, 2013.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Adrian P .: Giant Sand - Ramp, Center Of The Universe and Purge & Slouch (reissues) . On: Adequacy . May 19, 2011, accessed November 5, 2013.
  9. ↑ a b c Cargo Records , accessed November 5, 2013.
  10. ↑ Kai Florian Becker: Giant Sand. American rock band . In: Munzinger Archive / Pop Archive International . 01/2013 (from January 8, 2013).
  11. ↑ (mw): Giant Sand. Ramp (Rough Trade) . In: Musikexpress / Sounds . 12/1991, p. 104.
  12. ↑ MEET - Musical Monitoring Association . In: Musikexpress / Sounds . 12/1991, p. 98.