by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“When coincidences happen, I just know I’m on the right trail of something.” Howe Gelb ain’t kidding. The Arizona native and longtime leader of Giant Sand, a self-described “singer-songwriter in the indie rock world,” was living in Denmark when he received invitations to blues festivals in far-off Toronto and Ottawa in 2003. Being less familiar, at the time, with the loosely defined genres that tend to adorn Canadian music festivals (he’s since played Pop Montreal), he was surprised that anyone would associate him with blues. But, figuring that “Canada usually knows what it’s doing,” he travelled to Ottawa, where a series of fortuitous encounters set the stage for his latest project, Sno Angel.

“They had me in a baptist church and that didn’t make any sense to me,” says Gelb, who never took to organized religion. “But I thought, ‘Whatever, none of this makes sense, so that’s fine. It’s all consistent, anyway.’”

Hanging around the church for much of the day, Gelb wound up being “blitzed” by a succession of gospel choirs, a sound and spectacle he’d never witnessed live. The first performance left him “dizzy from their human overtones,” and the sensations only escalated as the day wore on.

“The pulsation was just infuriating my cells to the point of celebration,” he gushes about the second act. “It was insane. I felt like I was departiclizing. I couldn’t even believe it at this point. I was just wasted from the splendor.”

Recovering in his nearby hotel room, Gelb received what he took to be a sign. “There was a big thunderstorm that kicked out, a beautiful downpour, and coming from Arizona, that’s always a sign of good luck.”

Soon, he was drinking Maker’s Mark at the hotel bar (he has a rule that he only drinks when it rains, mostly because it rarely rains in Arizona), letting his inner voices figure out whether or not he should return to the church to make some kind of connection with one of the choirs. Drawn by what he felt to be a gravitational force, he opened the church doors to find a third choir playing an unannounced set. “And I’m wondering, ‘How many gospel choirs does this town have? Where am I?’”

Too shy to approach the choir after their rousing show, Gelb asked the church director, who’d seen his set earlier, whether he thought gospel singers would be willing to lend their voices to some secular material. The response was, “If you keep it positive!”

Roughly six months later, Gelb’s lyrics were approved by the director of the choir, who wound up singing on his Sno Angel LP. Egged on by folk singer Susan Odle, who Gelb had met on that same fateful day in Ottawa, he made a “leap of faith” and boarded a Canada-bound plane with no material, no idea what was in store at his friend Dave Draves’s ramshackle studio, and only a second-hand connection to a choir. But not only did everything fall into place with his mix of original material, Giant Sand covers and songs by the late Giant Sand co-founder Rainer Ptacek, with lots of help from drummer Jeremy Gara (who’s since joined the Arcade Fire), but the choir turned out to be the last choir Gelb had seen at the Bluesfest.

Though the record has taken years to be released (a Giant Sand LP came first), it’s been worth the wait for fans and critics, who’ve been lapping up its seamless stylistic blend, not to mention its live power. Of course, touring with such a large ensemble can be cumbersome, especially after Gelb’s recent attempt to travel extremely light. (He put underwear on the tour rider and was developing a utility belt for guitar pedals, and carrying a shotgun case for the pedal-plank, an idea “that was literally not gonna fly” after 9/11.)

“But it’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing,” he says, “and at this age, sister, when something moves you like that, it’s worth everything.”

With Jim Bryson at la Sala Rossa on Friday, Dec. 15, 9 p.m., $15

>> Music Listings