Giant Sand, the desert rock trio from Tucson, Arizona released Center of the Universe in 1992, an album where Howe Gelb and mates cover the usual wide spectrum of indie rawk, American roots music, spacy ballads, paranoid noise and some bar jazz. Compared to many other albums by them, they are quite focussed and cohesive on this one. Going in zillions of directions but never getting lost.

The opener Seeded sets the atmosphere of the record. It's a guitar freakout track on the noisy side of things. John Convertino's drums kick off the song which is then dominated by a raw electric guitar which is backed up by Paula Brown's bass. After more than half of the song Howe starts delivering his surreal opaque lyrics in his deadpan voice and the Psycho Sisters provide the antithetic humming background choir. The fierce distorted guitar attack is perfectly balanced out by the harmonical singing of the girls. It's a song about yin and yang, about ferocity and sweetness. How can anyone not love the odd genius of Howe Gelb, I will never get it. He is like a Captain Beefheart of our times. Without the Captain's delta blues fixation but with songs with tunes I can appreciate. Maybe I haven't tried enough with Don van Vliet yet though.

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