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Listening to Tim Hill’s new album, Giant—a rugged, tasteful batch of cowboy tunes and Americana ballads that feel forged out of the embers of a desert campfire—you might assume that he’s been working on a ranch his whole life. You’d be half right: Hill is indeed a rancher, working in the Orange County, California, area of Silverado, but he’s 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 Las—one of Los Angeles’s most beloved psych-rock bands—decided to start Calico Discos, their record label, they knew just the guy for its inaugural release: Hill’s solo debut, a 7-inch for the 2018 song “Paris, Texas,” introduced him as an alt-country act to be reckoned with—and his full-length debut, 2019’s 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 couldn’t 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 Bell’s Jazzcats Studio, where he played all of the instruments himself, with the exception of two outside players—one 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 [Young’s] “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 Zandt’s “No Place to Fall,” a festive, authentic take on José López Alavez’s “Canción Mixteca” (which was notably covered by Ry Cooder and Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas), and two impressive takes on part of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “French Suites,” referred to by Hill as “French Sweet,” naturally. “My dad only listened to classical growing up,” Hill explains, “so it didn’t really mean anything to me then. But now I love it. I can listen to, like, Glenn Gould all day.”
But Hill’s original songs are the sturdy pickup-truck engine of Giant—songs like “Calico,” a dreamy ride into the center of the sun, and the opener, “The Clock’s 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 didn’t have to move any word around,” Hill notes. “I didn’t have to cut anything out. It just fit perfectly in that music.”
Of course, there’s also Giant’s 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 Ferber’s 1952 novel); Hill was enamored by the movie, and by James Dean’s 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 he’s trying to do with his album named after it—and with his whole career: “Like the string quartet on the deck of the Titanic,” he says, “I’d like to play something beautiful before the ship goes down.”
Giant is out on February 10th, 2023 through Innovative Leisure/Calico Discos. Pre-order a copy here.
"His style is all his own" - NPR
"Brisk, self-contained, a little mysterious, and catchy enough to revisit again and again" - Paste Magazine
"Waterhouse remains as spirited as he is studious, crooning and belting at all the appropriate moments with a little bit of swagger." - All Music
After a sold-out European tour and ahead of the release of the documentary As The Wind – The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez, Nick Waterhouse releases ‘Monterey’ – a song long considered lost to the public by the legendary composer of the popular standard ‘Nature Boy’.
“There existed only a demo acetate recording of a member (John Harris) of the cult Los Angeles doo-wop group the Rivingtons which made its way to my ears via my Californio brethren Matt Correia (Allah-las),” says Waterhouse.
“In a way, it feels divined to have been delivered to me by these means, cut at the historic Western 2 studios in Hollywood, and played with such esteemed and familiar musical company - the rhythm section of Brian Lang on bass and Eric Jackowitz on drums, pianist Lee Pardini, second guitar John Anderson, and lead tenor saxophonist Mando Dorame. Pay close attention to the undertow pull as the band crests and the pre-solo bars drop into Mando’s loamy lead. I hope it takes you far away, but not too far from shore…”
A new documentary is set to release later this year, and this feels like an excellent time to join the pantheon of artists who have cut Eden’s material. ‘Monterey’ will be released digitally and on a limited 7” pressing.
Mapache — the “quintessentially laid-back” (UNCUT) Los Angeles-based duo of Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch whose “angelic harmonies weave between traditional folk and modern cosmic country music” (FLOOD) — release their new covers project 3 via Innovative Leisure. A tenderly crafted tribute to beloved music from past legends and admired contemporaries, 3 is a showcase for the seemingly effortless, unmistakably Californian musicality that has quickly become Mapache’s signature.
Created in the midst of the pandemic shutdown that interrupted the touring of their 2020 album From Liberty Street, 3 emerged after Sam and Clay hunkered down with their close friend and record producer Dan Horne (Beachwood Sparks, Cass McCombs, Allah-Las) and began to work on vulnerable reinterpretations on some of their favorite songs. There are tributes to acknowledged classics — including a sun-dappled and swaying take on Stevie Wonder’s “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” and a romantically unhurried version of Sade’s “All About Our Love” — as well as inventive spins on songs by Allah-Las and Aussie psych-rockers Babe Rainbow.
The performances on 3 embody exactly what makes Mapache’s music so intoxicating: close harmonies, masterful musicianship, and a unique ability to tap into the innate vibrations of a song and tease out its moments of wonder. It’s a welcoming record that posits deep, thoughtful listening as the greatest means of escape.
Listen to 3 here: https://smarturl.it/mapache3
Back in 2019, we were on tour with Mapache in Europe, and they would occasionally ask us to put "Worship the Sun" in our set. After a show in Barcelona, where we didn't play the song, they decided to serenade us backstage playing a grungy Eddie Veder-esq take on the tune. As they were playing, we started to see lightning thru the sky light in the green room. Shortly after, we tried to leave the Apollo theatre and realized we were in the middle of a monsoon. The venue had locked concert goers inside as the street turned into a river. Dumpsters started to float down the street as the water brimmed over the hoods of cars. It only lasted for about 45 minutes, but it was one of the most intense weather experiences any of us had ever seen. The next day we worshipped the sun. - The Allah-Las
Mapache's cover of the Allah-Las "Worship The Sun" is available on all DSP platforms: https://smarturl.it/
In our latest collaboration with Calico Discos (a label imprint by Allah-Las), we are pleased to announce an album of cover songs by the band Mapache entitled 3. "All About Our Love" - - Sade's timeless classic is the lead single from the forthcoming project and is out now across DSP's.
More info about the covers project:
Shortly after having their North American tour canceled due to Covid in March 2020, Sam, Clay & their close friend and producer Dan Horne decided to hunker down and use the time to work on an album of covers. Ranging from songs by close friends like Allah Las & Little Wings, to classics by Stevie Wonder & the Beach Boys, what resulted is an effortless & touching take on songs you may or may not be familiar with. Other artists include: Sade, Babe Rainbow, Peter Rowan, The Louvin Brothers