Giant

Description

Listening to Tim Hills new album, Gianta rugged, tasteful batch of cowboy tunes and Americana ballads that feel forged out of the embers of a desert campfireyou might assume that hes been working on a ranch his whole life. Youd be half right: Hill is indeed a rancher, working in the Orange County, California, area of Silverado, but hes actually a relative novice when it comes to tasks like tending to horses and driving a tractor. He only just got the job since the pandemic started, inspired on something of a whim: I always kind of thought I could work on a ranch, Hill says. So I just looked around for some jobs and they had an opening.

Hill is based in Whittier, California, where he was born and raised, and music has always been his guiding force. The son of a music teacher, Hill grew up playing various instruments in a formal manner, but eventually carved a niche for himself in local punk bands, before finding himself as an in-demand touring musician for artists like Nick Waterhouse and the Allah-Las. When the Lasone of Los Angeless most beloved psych-rock bandsdecided to start Calico Discos, their record label, they knew just the guy for its inaugural release: Hills solo debut, a 7-inch for the 2018 song Paris, Texas, introduced him as an alt-country act to be reckoned withand hisfull-length debut, 2019s Payador, was an underground hit, with copies of the sold-out first run having gone for as much as $100 on Discogs.

Payador was a simple and honest attempt at a first record, according to Hill, which was done entirely at home on a four-track. When the project was finished, the fact was made quite cosmically clear: It couldnt have been more than a few seconds after the last take, the last overdub, the last cassette, that smoke began to billow from behind the four-track recorder, Hill explains. So for his sophomore album, he decided that maybe it was time to upgrade the approach a little bit. Taking a drive down the 605 to Long Beach, Hill set up shop at Jonny Bells Jazzcats Studio, where he played all of the instruments himself, with the exception of two outside playersone for pedal steel and one for violin.

The result is a record steeped in affection for artists like Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, and Neil Young, but reimagined through the lens of the modern cultural melting pot that Hill lives in. (I feel like I’m always trying to just rewrite [Youngs] Out on the Weekend in some way or another, says Hill, just because I like that feel so much.) The choice of covers on the album speaks multitudes: Giant features a heartbreaking take on Townes Van Zandts No Place to Fall, a festive, authentic take on Jos Lpez Alavezs Cancin Mixteca (which was notably covered by Ry Cooder and Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas), and two impressive takes on part of Johann Sebastian Bachs French Suites, referred to by Hill as French Sweet, naturally. My dad only listened to classical growing up, Hill explains, so it didnt really mean anything to me then. But now I love it. I can listen to, like, Glenn Gould all day.

But Hills original songs are the sturdy pickup-truck engine of Giantsongs like Calico, a dreamy ride into the center of the sun, and the opener, The Clocks Never Wrong, a waltz that would get even the drunkest person at the bar to stand up and start dancing along: I miss the good ole time when girls used to ask what car you drive, Hill croons in that latter song, and leave you with a hole in your heart. On Candlestick, he takes his graceful chords and melody and applies them to a poem written by his friend, the artist Ry Welch. It was just one of those things where I didnt have to move any word around, Hill notes. I didnt have to cut anything out. It just fit perfectly in that music.

Of course, theres also Giants title track, an operatic piano piece that presents a brief, episodic tale of the culture clash that occurs in so many forms in the U.S. these days. The song was inspired by the 1956 George Stevens film of the same name (itself adapted from Edna Ferbers 1952 novel); Hill was enamored by the movie, and by James Deans performance in particular, in which he plays a ranch hand in Texas in the 1920s. I really identify with that character now, Hill explains.

Giant was the last movie Dean filmed before he died, and Hill has inherited a fitting ethos for what hes trying to do with his album named after itand with his whole career: Like the string quartet on the deck of the Titanic, he says, Id like to play something beautiful before the ship goes down.