Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA

Simon Hanes is a composer, performer, conductor, band member, and impresario of incredible energy and endless ideas. At any given time, Hanes seems to be at work in a half-dozen different projects, from his big irreverent ensemble of Italian soundtrack pop Tredici Bacci to his splenetic thrash-noise outlet Trigger. He is a regular collaborator of JG Thirlwell and has multiple ongoing projects with pianist Anthony Coleman. But no Hanes outlet is as audacious, risky, and rewarding as GARGANTUA. It is an hourlong epic of emotional volatility and compositional redirection he composed for a 15-piece band that includes every instrument in triplicate—three electric basses, three drummers, three French horns, three trombones, and three singers with voices so acrobatic they belong on a high wire. Arms swinging like a windmill, Hanes conducts the unit with a vim that essentially makes him a sixteenth member. (Hanes also plays in his Tsons of Tsunami and in his new quartet with Fred Frith at Big Ears 2026.)

Hanes had long considered writing for a sextet of three bassists and drummers, but while navigating mountain peaks while on tour with Trigger in Norway in 2022, this more expansive idea began to take root. Inspired by volcanoes and Vikings, grindcore and harsh noise, beautiful American minimalism and hypnotic Tibetan drone, GARGANTUA takes its name from a 16th-century work by French satirist François Rabelais that highlighted the extremes and absurdities of the human condition. When Hanes premiered GARGANTUA at Roulette near the end of 2024, it was clear that this work did the same, wrapping anger and joy, humor and reflection inside pieces that ping-ponged through feelings and forms alike. A post-modern wonder that recalls the boundless interests of John Zorn, GARGANTUA is as daunting as it is delightful, the product of a mind that dazzles directly with complexity and play.