Debacle Records is pleased to announce the vinyl remaster and reissue of Other States by Danny Paul Grody.

Previously released as a part of Geographic North’s wonderful “Sketch For Winter” series, Other States the LP edition stands alone with new cover art featuring art from Billy Joe Miller and a remaster by Chuck Johnson.

Other States is a unique chapter in Danny’s discography, featuring some of the most direct drones absent his signature crisp guitar styles (Cloudhand), as well as leaning into site specific field recordings. At Debacle HQ we have become familar to the sounds of the album wafting around the house around 7-8PM as it became my son’s favorite album to self-calm and fall asleep to. Countless hours of hearing it waft down the halls. The power of the album is such that we never tired of hearing it ringing out and announcing the switch to a quiet evening house.

Press from the original release:

“Grody’s most potent effort yet, perfectly cataloguing the splendour of that wild Western terrain.
-Spools Out - The Quietus-

“Other States is an "experimental" album, broadly speaking, but it requires no great work on the listener's behalf to enjoy. Its bounty lies in its immediate and accessible beauty.”
-Chris Zaldua, SF Weekly-


Danny Paul Grody on Other States

“This music was born from a spirit of collaboration. I may not have known it at the time, but there was a gradual shift redirecting my energy outward in search of new places and spaces to inhabit. Looking back now it all makes sense. I had been working within my own echo-chamber or ideas for a while and longed for new perspectives to shake things up and feel inspired by.

The first sign of this shift was seeded back in 2013 when I was invited by longtime friend, Tarentel collaborator, and filmmaker, Paul Clipson, to join a program featuring his super 8mm film 'Other States' at Artist Television Access (ATA) in San Francisco, CA. This marked a rare opportunity to work as a duo outside the realm of Tarentel and it came exactly at the right moment. The title track is a slightly reworked version of what accompanied his film and became a catalyst for the album to build from. Paul has since departed, but his generosity of spirit and boundless creativity continues to ripple and guide folks like myself lucky enough to have known him. This album stands as a testament to his impact and friendship.

Another thread connecting this music stems from my time working alongside visual artist James Sterling Pitt during an artist residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA in the summer of 2014. We shared a mutual interest in the idea of place (real and imagined) and started going on weekly outings taking advantage of many beautiful natural surroundings accessible to us in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Places like Mineral Springs in Tilden Park and Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands became sights for source material that would later get reworked, built upon, and folded back on itself, culminating in a public exhibit and one-off performance timed with the summer solstice. Sharing that creative time together left a strong impression on the direction of the album as well. Echoes of this can be heard on pieces like "Mineral Springs", which include field recordings captured in Tilden Park and "Cloudhand", where I layered and processed close-mic’d recordings of James drawing with pencil on paper.

When I was first approached by Geographic North to participate in their "Sketch for Winter" cassette series, it was not yet clear how these seemingly isolated moments would eventually be connected. But as I began sketching out ideas to create something resembling an album, the material took on a life of its own and formed a strange cohesive logic that still kind of mystifies me to this day.

I'm grateful to both Paul and James for allowing me to join them and for expanding the creative possibilities that led me here. A big thanks also to Bobby Powers and Farbod Kokabi of Geographic North for providing an impetus to share this music in the first place, to Chuck Johnson for lending a careful, patient objective ear in the re-master, and to Samuel Melancon for giving the album a second life and new home on LP. "