bio/press «

– BIO –

Seattle-based GABRIEL MINTZ has a need to write songs. Lots of them. It’s like blood or breathing. From his West Village days on Bleeker Street to his Greyhound Bus desert individuations, Mintz has written more than a hundred songs that tell of characters and sketched out scenes. Vocals are a gangly call. Dirtied, but on. Closer to the mic, his lower register becomes unashamed of its beauty. He’s roots type Americana-leaning with a warm spatial drone.

Capturing this sublime aridness, Mintz released Volume One this spring. It documents his first full-length foray and it’s an adventurous one. The expansive beauty of tracks like “Western Days,’ “Atom Bomb” and “Firefly” amble along the mental throughway like brush across a barren Texas highway.

These contemplative capsules were destined to accompany the open plains as seen from an auto on cruise control or the dew-tinted window of a passing train. The moods that reverberate on Volume One are many; from the gritty thump of “Safeway” to the 60’s pop harmonies of “Sofa Bed” where Mintz sounds like a cross between Roger McGuinn and Neil Diamond to the majestic “Desert Sky” whose stream-of-consciousness vocal sounds like a channeling of Jim Morrison from his epic ode “The End”.

Anchoring Gabriel’s visceral ruminations are Trent Moorman (Head Like A Kite) on drums and producer Geoff Stanfield (Sun Kil Moon) on bass who both recently joined him for a four-song live session at Seattle’s world-famous KEXP studios. The radio station’s Morning Show host/producer John Richards quipped “This new Gabriel Mintz is pretty stunning stuff, emotional & beautiful music.”

This tastemaker endorsement joined lofty accolades from the cities’ leading publications including Seattle Weekly, SOUND Magazine and the Stranger. Also on board is GIVE Seattle (http://giveseattle.org) a thirty-plus business and non-profit collective initiated by Seattle coffee roaster Caffe Vita whom hand-selected the song “Safeway” for their 2009 “Best-of” compilation benefitting Arts Corps, Seattle’s largest nonprofit arts educator and a pipeline to local area foodbanks. Alongside Mintz, the GIVE Seattle compilation features artists such as Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes and Visqueen.

- PRESS -
“This new Gabriel Mintz is pretty stunning stuff, emotional & beautiful music.” “Great Album” – John Richards, Host/Producer of The Morning Show on KEXP

“He began playing and the room was suddenly painted as his world, a dark place shot through with a fluid, somehow playful beauty. His voice ached and crooned and his fingers skipped and ran down his fret board.” SOUND Magazine

“Singer songwriter Gabriel Mintz has one of the finest voices in Seattle. It’s a voice you had no idea he contained, and it surrounds you, gravelly, worn, and warm…Volume One, an alternately morose and joyous collection of finely crafted, accessible rock that’s devoid of cheese.” The Stranger

“You don’t yet know you like (Gabriel Mintz).” Seattle Weekly

- PHOTO -