Oh hello, hello to reach and one of all my children!

My title is Gr-r-r-andma for all these whoʼs wonder in slumber and still grin!

Follow me to the plunderfull town of Piddletractor, where we will search for my naughty little nephew, Alewishus, the clown prince of Piddletractor!

Thus begins the mythic non-saga of Grandma Sparrow, his nephew, and the various denizens of Piddletractor, USA. Joe Westerlund puts his performance alter-ego through the trademark Spacebomb wringer: strings, horns, and groovy houseband to produce a wild new thing, a psychedelic children’s song-cycle for adults that doesn’t defy description so much as dance around it and pull at its nose. It’s the kind of project that is rarely dreamed up these days, rarer still to be executed with such skill, bravado and glee (complete with an amateur youth choir). A bold production from Spacebomb Records, ever dedicated to the redefinition of what a record can be in the 21st century.

Westerlund on modern collage technique:

The idea for the record came from a desire to make a completely seamless album, where pieces and parts from one song could be placed on another, to investigate a collage structure. Working with tape was a revelation. I learned more about following the natural energy of the performance within each set of takes, without the aid of digital technology.

Westerlund on the composition process:

I have a lot of ideas come to me in the morning while Iʼm waking up. Iʼd follow through with a concept blindly, like “write a twelve-tone lullabye” and then as we ﬂeshed it out and recorded it, there would be a process of justifying it by giving the character a context in the Piddletractor world.

Westerlund on the story, non-story of Piddletractor:

Thereʼs no hidden narrative. What the listener hears is all there is. I didnʼt sit down with a typewriter, ﬁguring out any sort of backstory, or social dynamic, or what the land of Piddletractor looked like; all these things just emerged naturally from writing the score, and were left in their obscured state. Weʼre choosing to rely on the music to ﬁll in the blanks for us.

Grandma Sparrow on mothersnakes:

Obediah, Sacrimiah, Existential Mothersnakes

Grandma Sparrow is blessed with a 7-year-old’s unbridled imagination in the body of a talented 33-year-old musician. Viewing the character from this perspective, things start to make more magical sense and the absurdities fit together in a satisfying whole. Crude jokes, energetic silliness, and limerick logic are borne aloft by the compositions–methodically thought-out and arranged with razor sharp precision in this over-the-top, richly realized musical vision. Westerlund revels in chaotic form, pop deconstruction, and guileless melody–Grandma Sparrow & his Piddletractor Orchestra is a wild ride of audio collage, drifts of radio static and orchestrated grooves–the Beach Boys and Charles Ives wandering through Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Press

“Mind-blowing… Grandma Sparrow is nostalgic, futuristic, hilarious, profound, disturbing, ecstatic, ridiculous, and brilliant.” (9 out of 10) — SPIN

“Album of the month times ten!” — Stephen Daultrey, Bizarre Mag UK

“It’s got the strange, multi-layered harmonies of the Beatles circa Magical Mystery Tour, the symphonic sweep of Van Dyke Parks, the oddball instrumentation of Brian Wilson at his most wigged-out.” — Wondering Sound

“Gloriously freaky…super-fun…This playdate is some trippy, deep shit.” — Village Voice

“An amalgam of audio collage, improvisation, atonal sounds and enchanting melodies” — Relix

“Brilliantly realized…a surreal, train-wreck masterpiece.” — Style Weekly

“It’s a sonic playground…[that] embraces absurdist humor and childlike whimsy, impulsive improvisation and pop collisions.” — Indy Week

“Wonderfully brilliant” — All Around Sound

“After a very long wait, the second album on Matthew E White’s Spacebomb label has turned up… and it may not be quite what most of you would have envisaged…” — UNCUT

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