at a glance...

Hometown: Cleveland, OH/Copenhagen, Denmark
Formed: 1996

Members:
David Thomas -vocals
P.O. Jørgens -drums, percussion, steel drum, Vibraharp
Jørgen Teller -guitars and casio
Per Buhl -clarinet, melodica, slide and bass

Bands In The Family:
Pere Ubu, Dead Man's Band, Ghost In The Machine

Notes:
David Thomas founded Pere Ubu in 1975, but he's also pursued less rock-oriented interests on the side since 1981. He joined forces with a trio of Danish improvisors in 1996. The project, originally dubbed Greenland, toured Denmark and convened several times at a Danish farm that's been converted into a studio to record this album.

David Thomas is a singer, story-teller, and crank par excellence, and his solo endeavors often display these skills better than his rock band Pere Ubu.

This album documents what happens when artists bring ostensibly incompatible worlds together and try to make sense of their mutual incomprehension. It was birthed during an impromptu concert by Thomas and three Danish players associated with experimental musics that was staged in the middle of a Copenhagen fountain. They originally called their assemblage Greenland, which refers to the spectacular misapprehension Leif Erickson committed when he mistook that icy location for North America. Their notion was to filter Thomas's very American preoccupations through a European sensibility. So the singer wrapped his expressive, elastic pipes around a set of surreal ecrit noir tales that draw on his favorite themes; loss, loneliness, and the ways that one's memories alienate one from the present. The Danes responded with varied settings; swaggering acoustic rock, a couple reworkings of The Seeds' "Pushin' Too Hard" riff, lazy swing jazz, metallic soundscapes.

The outcome, which is more likely to make you stroke your chin than to shake your hips, sits comfortably beside the quirky, intriguing work that Thomas did in the middle '80s with The Pedestrians.

If you like David Thomas, check out:
Pere Ubu The Modern Dance
Pere Ubu Apocalypse Now
Pere Ubu The Art Of Walking
Pere Ubu Song Of The Bailing Man
David Thomas and Two Pale Boys Erewhon
David Thomas Monster

-- Bill Meyer