Gastr del Sol (derived from a combination of the name of a race horse (Gato del Sol) and David Grubbs' previous band Bastro) was an American,

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

-based band, consisting for most of their career of

David Grubbs David Grubbs (born September 21, 1967) is an American composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine (band), Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet a ...

and Jim O'Rourke. Between 1993 and 1998 they released seven albums ranging in genre from

post-rock Post-rock is a subgenre of experimental rock that emphasizes Texture (music), texture, atmosphere, and non-traditional song structures over conventional rock techniques. Post-rock artists often combine rock instrumentation and rock stylings wit ...

(the scene they were most associated with) to

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...

Early line-up

Grubbs, a former member of Squirrel Bait formed the band in

in 1991 from the final line-up of the group

Bastro Bastro was an American post-hardcore band which was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band's main line-up consisted of David Grubbs on guitar, Clark Johnson on bass guitar, and John McEntire on drums. The band also experimented wit ...

, with Bundy K. Brown and John McEntire on

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

and

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

respectively. The trio released their first album, '' The Serpentine Similar'', in 1993, ushering in a quieter, less

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

-oriented sound with the change of name. Brown and McEntire left to join

Tortoise Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...

the following year, and guitarist/composer/producer Jim O'Rourke joined.

Duo line-up

At this point Gastr del Sol became mainly a collaboration between Grubbs and O'Rourke, joined by an ever-changing collection of guests. Though McEntire was no longer a full member, he continued contributing to many Gastr del Sol recordings and concerts. Most releases by this line-up were on Chicago's Drag City, beginning with the acoustic guitar-based '' Crookt, Crackt, or Fly'' in 1994. "Work From Smoke", the centerpiece of this album, fused Grubbs and O'Rourke's penchant for atonal guitar interplay with

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

and Grubbs's increasingly surreal lyrics. A pair of releases followed quickly in 1995. The ''Mirror Repair'' EP added elements of

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

. '' The Harp Factory on Lake Street'', released on the Table of the Elements label, was their most experimental work, a piece for chamber orchestra with only occasional voice and piano from Grubbs. Also in 1995, the band contributed the song "Quietly Approaching" to the

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

benefit album '' Red Hot + Bothered'' produced by the

Red Hot Organization ''Red Hot Organization'' (RHO) is a non-profit, 501(c) 3, international organization with goals to promote diversity through equal access to healthcare through pop culture. Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors ...

. 1996's '' Upgrade & Afterlife'' included a would-be film score by O'Rourke, "Our Exquisite Replica of 'Eternity'", and an extended interpretation of the John Fahey piece "Dry Bones in the Valley" featuring guest

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

on violin. With the release of '' Camoufleur'' in 1998, Gastr del Sol progressed further into the realm of conventional melodies and

chamber pop Chamber pop (also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of strings, horns, piano, and vocal harmonies, and other components drawn from t ...

, creating their most accessible and popular album. Its chord patterns, melodies, and

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet, but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B♭, though ...

and string-heavy arrangements prefigure O'Rourke's future pop releases. The album was co-written with Markus Popp, of the pioneering German

glitch A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...

group

Oval An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas of mathematics (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.), it is given a more precise definition, which may inc ...

, who contributed to the electronic aspects of the album. After ''Camoufleur'' the band split up. Grubbs and O'Rourke have both continued to release albums under their own names in the fields of rock, pop, and experimental music. In 2024, Drag City released ''We Have Dozens of Titles'', a 3LP/2CD boxset containing various unreleased studio and live recordings made by the band between 1993 and 1998.

Partial discography

* '' The Serpentine Similar'' (Teenbeat/ Drag City, 1993) * ''Twenty Songs Less'' (Teenbeat, 1993) * '' Crookt, Crackt, or Fly'' (Drag City, 1994) * '' Mirror Repair EP'' (Drag City, 1994) * '' The Harp Factory on Lake Street'' ( Table of the Elements, 1995) * ''The Japanese Room at LA Pagode'' (with

) (Table of the Elements, 1995) * '' Upgrade & Afterlife'' (Drag City, 1996) * '' Camoufleur'' (Drag City, 1998) * ''We Have Dozens of Titles'' (Drag City, 2024)

References

External links

Work from Smoke: A Gastr del Sol Resource

Jim O'Rourke discography
with details on other Gastr del Sol recordings {{Authority control American post-rock groups Rock music groups from Illinois Musical groups from Chicago Drag City (record label) artists