GLEANERS - Blessed

"The Gleaners are way, way, way, way, way, way cool!!!!" exclaims legendary producer/session player Jim Dickinson. And as usual, Dickinson is correct. The Gleaners — singer-guitarist Chris Maxwell, bassist Michael DuClos and drummer Phil Hernandez – make music that's informed as much by drum 'n' bass as it is by the Beatles, not to mention everything from hip-hop to vintage indie rock. And translating all that stuff through the classic guitar-bass-drums lineup is where the Gleaners' blazing invention happens. It's traditional songwriting with a non-traditional approach, and as the Gleaners' self-titled debut album proves ten times over, the results are spectacular.
Hernandez's insistent, inventive drumming is the bedrock of the band's sound while DuClos' bass lines propel every aspect of the music like a man shot out of a cannon; Maxwell tops it off with stunning chords, witty, death-defying solos and tuneful singing that touches just about every emotional base. Sure, they're great players, but it all adds up to more than the sum of its parts. And that's what makes the Gleaners a band.
A few years ago, Hernandez left the Grammy award-winning Austin band Brave Combo to work as a drummer/DJ in New York City. He approached Maxwell's previous band, Capitol recording artists Skeleton Key, to do a remix for their upcoming release. The two hit it off and after Chris left Skeleton Key, they became the Elegant Too and began writing songs and playing club shows on the Lower East Side.
Pretty soon, Chris’ old label, Capitol, was throwing projects at this dynamic duo. The first rabbit out of the hat was the 2001 Shivaree album I ought to give you a shot in the head for making me live in this dump which recently went platinum in Italy as well as gold in France and Portugal. Other amazing collaborations came over the next couple of years: Yoko Ono, John Cale, They Might Be Giants, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Ray Davies, and many others.
Shivaree's touring bassist was Michael DuClos. DuClos had recorded Lustro, a remarkable spoken-word-with-music album of his own sensational poetry which featured performances by Deborah Harry, Cracker's David Lowery, Kristin Hersh and even notorious conceptual artist Vito Acconci, as well as work by guitar great Robert Quine, with whom DuClos will soon record a duo album. DuClos had also worked with the likes of Pete Townshend, former Waterboy Mike Scott, legendary avant jazz musician Roswell Rudd and Levon Helm.
During a 2002 Shivaree tour of Europe, DuClos, Hernandez and Maxwell quickly realized they were clicking in a major way and when the trio returned home to New York City, they spent endless nights jamming and writing songs together. Then the day after their first show ever, an old Arkansas friend called Maxwell: his label HTS Records suddenly had some studio time available – did Maxwell have anything he wanted to record for HTS? He sure did.
The Gleaners tracked and mixed their self-titled debut in six gloriously productive days at Poynter Studios in Little Rock, finishing up lyrics and arrangements on the fly. The band pulled it off in grand style; the album is a riveting sonic snapshot of the Gleaners' very own Big Bang.
Singing of last thoughts on plunging planes, fields of roses, the pleasant properties of distortion, and time spent alone, the Gleaners top their tuneful, kinetic music with and smart lyrics you can sing along to, crammed with astonishingly vivid lyrical imagery. "Blessed," for instance, not only summons up the bittersweet feeling of autumn but all the associations that go with it, and as the song's harmonic world grows ever more complex so does the mental movie screen it evokes.
The Gleaners were named for an obscure sect in France, profiled by legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda, that owns only possessions its members have found for free. And on a musical level, that's what the band does, too – scavenge the cultural landscape for whatever they can use, sustaining themselves – and us – with their remarkable discoveries. And what they've discovered is way, way, way, way, way, way cool indeed.

~ Michael Azzerad, Author, recording artist.

Gleaners site: gleanersnyc.com