Oxbow is an American experimental rock band from San Francisco, California. Founded in 1988, the band has released eight studio albums. Oxbow’s music is extremely diversified and has been compared to bands such as Neurosis and The Birthday Party, and also to modern classical composers such as Penderecki and John Luther Adams. Elements of blues, noise rock, heavy metal, jazz, and contemporary classical music are consistently mentioned. Allmusic writer Jason Ankeny identified elements of free jazz and musique concrète.
Eugene says of the video, “Insofar as possible this is a tip of the hat to my favorite movie of all time, The Servant, directed by Joseph Losey. At least lyrically it tapped into the same mordant vein that makes this almost a perfect capstone for a meditation on love.”
Niko goes in-depth on how the song and video came to be, “We moved into an old house in San Francisco in 1999 and I bought a $100 piano on half-price day at Salvation Army, put it in the garage under the living space, and I think the first time I sat down to play it out came what became “All Gone.” Something intensely sad had happened in that room, as I came to feel it, and found its way into the music.
Eugene and I first performed a version of the song at a tiny bar with a dirt floor up on the side of a hill in Lyon, France. I used to play it before family dinners at my sister’s house with my mother and father there. Now my parents are gone, as is my first marriage. Such is life.
The first time we played it on tour, I closed my eyes and saw the faces of my children above me like cherubim, biting my tongue to stop the tears. Listening to “All Gone” on the test pressing for Love’s Holiday I found myself sobbing three separate times. Unable to approve the test for days, I just couldn’t get through it.
What the hell is all that? Why so sad? I have no idea.
Thank you for taking the journey, now completed, of Love’s Holiday videos with us. Thanks to the extraordinary director John Levy.”
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.”
Delìrivm Còrdia 