“Gunwale“ is from Oxbow’s new album, Love’s Holiday. Get it now at
Director-Filmmaker-Editor: Annapaola Martin
Assistant: Xabier Iriondo
Special thanks to Chris Holden
“ If you listen to it, Gunwale is a sound wave that drags you away. If you look at it, Gunwale is a journey on the surface of the water, on the border between our reality and the world of abyss, where all of our dreams and fears live. Three men are trying to capture the stranger who comes from the sea: who’s the Watcher that can see everything?“ - Annapaola Martin
“I would record my improvised singing to each of my newborn kids going to sleep or when they would wake predawn needing a diaper or a bottle. Listening later I realized I was at concert pitch, oddly in-tune with the piano there in the dark, often straight from sleep. A real discovery after a lifetime of singing. This particular melody which became the song “Gunwale,” sung to my intently focused baby boy one early morning in 2018, fit a D Major blues. I arranged the melody for a 15 voice mixed choir and we recorded two layers in the studio. We had used our final bass, drums, and guitar take, the only one with an extended improv at the end. Protools crashed midway in the first vocal take so we had to restart from there; the final choir chord gave me a shiver of pleasure hearing it sung in the studio the first time. One of my favorite moments on Love’s Holiday.“ - Niko Wenner
“Gunwale and the gerund form “gunwaling” describes a trick that you use when/if you’ve lost your paddles and it sees you standing at the boat’s stern ON the stern and moving the boat by squatting and then standing. The lyric itself? Nothing at all to do with that. And yet it does.” - Eugene S. Robinson
Upcoming tour dates
Oct 20 Philadelphia, PA PhilaMOCA
Oct 21 Portland, ME SPACE
Oct 22 Brooklyn, NY Elsewhere
Nov 5 Seattle, WA Substation
Nov 6 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre
Nov 7 Portland, OR State Theatre
Nov 9 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
Nov 10 Los Angeles, CA Regent Theatre
Nov 11 Mesa, AZ Pub Rock
Nov 12 Austin, TX Mohawk
Love’s Holiday track listing:
1. Dead Ahead
2. Icy White & Crystalline
3. Lovely Murk
4. 1000 Hours
5. All Gone
6. The Night The Room Started Burning
7. “ “
8. Million Dollar Weekend
9. The Second Talk
10. Gunwale
OXBOW is Dan Adams (electrical/acoustic bass), Greg Davis (drums/percussion), Eugene S. Robinson (vocals), and Niko Wenner (guitars/pianos). The San Francisco-born band have released seven studio albums since their inception in 1988, with Pitchfork saying the foursome have released “some of the most eccentric heavy music albums ever.”