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Flowering Flows

by David Garland

supported by
Rodney Greenblat
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Rodney Greenblat Surviving, drifting and coming into focus. Brittle, wavering and endless. This music comes from sheer vibrations of guitar strings and secret electronics that are controlled by emotion alone, What is the source? No one knows - so relax and drift through vast humming soundscapes.
waltbartlome
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elkessommer
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David Weller
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alf brooks
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Anthony B. Creamer III
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ehaber
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vertuila
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bernard odot
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alannarama
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Josh Sand
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Dave Seidel
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William Loeb
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Marte van der Loop
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Julia Kent
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    a beautifully packaged double CD, featuring artwork by David Garland

    Includes unlimited streaming of Flowering Flows via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      $15 USD or more 

     

1.
String Flow 1, part 1 - The Fifth 09:48
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2.
String Flow 1, part 2 - The Fourth 17:54
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3.
String Flow 1, part 3 - The Tonic 21:29
4.
String Flow 2, part 1 - Undiminished Gift 10:20
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5.
String Flow 2, part 2 - Relatively Minor Shift 11:34
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6.
String Flow 2, part 3 - Intervallic Drift 16:40
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7.
String Flow 2, part 4 - Uplift 09:42
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about

Flowering Flows is a double album featuring two multi-movement pieces for vibrating strings: String Flow 1, and String Flow 2. The only instrument used is a modified 12-string acoustic guitar created by Kenji Garland, the composer’s son. In the recording the guitar is layered through multi-tracking. The guitar is battery powered, but it is an acoustic instrument. Like a violin or piano the sound is manifested in vibrating wood and wire, and must be recorded with microphones. These real-world vibrations are important to Garland in principle as someone who prefers to work with acoustic rather than digitally produced sound, and they are essential to the throbbing interaction of the strings which is the soul of this music.

The Performing Technique
Garland began using this guitar in his music in 2012. “The String Flows are the result of going to an extreme and primarily letting the guitar speak for itself,” says Garland. “My role is to tune it (generally open tunings with each of the 12 strings on a different pitch, instead of in pairs), and then to be an attentive facilitator with my ears, mind, and hands. And my hands are usually not on the strings plucking and fretting as would be normal, but instead I touch, hold, and caress the body of guitar to elicit changes in harmonics, and to dampen or emphasize certain strings and tonalities.”

The Flow
When the battery power is turned on, the guitar strings will soon begin to vibrate — this is how the sound rises from silence at the beginning of most movements. From that point the strings and body of the guitar will continue to vibrate until the power is turned off or they are dampened by the performer’s hands. The strings sometimes audibly bump into each other as they vibrate, or purr and zing sitar-like against the frets. Like flowing water, the vibrations can accumulate and pool until a suppressed tonality finds an outlet and begins a new direction in the flow. The pitches may form a simple chord or harmony, but there’s a constant flowering of change in the interactions and colors of the pitches. The ever-changing details become the focus of the listening experience, placing the listener in a vivid, enveloping, continuous *now*. The music is not a bath of relaxing sound, but rather an excited and exciting engagement with constant flux, encouraging a kind of meditation that’s more about tuning in rather than zoning out.

credits

released May 23, 2023

Created, recorded, and produced by David Garland playing a 12-string sustaining guitar created by Kenji Garland.
Julian Lampert plays double bass on The Tonic.
Recorded with microphones in a room, August, 2020, and November, 2022.
Design and cover photo by DG.
Copyright (c) 2023 by David Garland
Published by Garland Control Songs ASCAP
davidgarland.com
Tall Owl Audio TOA14

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David Garland New York, New York

Composer/singer/multi-instrumentalist David Garland has been steadily shaping songs in new ways since 1980.

"Like many great songwriters before him, Garland pushes the limits of acceptable harmony and dissonance, yet never at the expense of beauty. If it's not possible for popular music to reach the heights of the great classical masters, it seems no one has told David Garland."
--Sean Lennon ... more

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