press
“the best songwriter of my generation, bar none.”
—Kyle Gann, Village Voice, 1998
“David Garland, the amiable host of WNYC-FM’s invaluable Spinning
On Air, has an uncanny knack for framing his keen observances of the mundane
into highly personable art-pop songs. He coaxes his tales into devilishly catchy
melodies, wraps them in beguiling orchestrations and delivers them with his
warm, inviting baritone.”
—Time Out New York, Nov. 22–27, 2003
“Whatever the tools and personal sounds he manipulates, [Garland] always
stands as an inventor of language rather than an adept of recycling or collage.
A dexterous multi-instrumentalist, Garland is also an unpredictable harmonist,
a born melodist, an arranger bubbling with ideas, an all-terrain vocalist,
and a top-grade lyric writer. Because of his alchemist’s sensibility he
can put all these virtues in the service of writing songs which have the allure
of a unique world which is more than the sum of its parts: a sort of fantasy
American popular song…”
—Richard Robert, Les Inrockuptibles, June 5-11, 2001
(translated from French)
“Garland is a superb, crazily imaginative songwriter. Singing through
a synclavier or banging on a piece of Styrofoam, he’ll sing about how
insane the nightly news is, how painful true love is, how scary getting to
know other people is, and it all quietly creeps up and hits you right where
you live.”
—Kyle Gann, Village Voice, June 8, 1999
concert reviews | recordings reviews | radio reviews
concert reviews
“He calls his songs ’control songs,’ though they generally tell
us how little control we have over our lives. His new CD is called Togetherness,
though its lyrics suggest he doesn’t believe such a state exists. David
Garland’s persona is a core of unrelievable pain hidden beneath a layer
of naive optimism covered by a veneer of bemused cynicism. He acts so simple,
but the clues about that inner complexity fall thick and fast….the music
circles back behind your unconscious and zaps you with the Real Truth, the
ineffable inevitabilities of being human. It can do that because Garland has
a superb melodic sensibility.”
—Kyle Gann, The Village Voice, June 22, 1999
“The man is not easy to pin down; singer/songwriter could be the category
which succeeds best. Garland sings his songs with the naturalness of speech,
with a clear and warm-colored voice unspectacularly and yet with skilled precision.
Everything to do with this wirey man with grey curls appears relaxed and effortless
as he plucks and hits at the electric bass or reaches for the flute for an
instrumental number. The variously-formed shimmering sound-paintings emerging
from the unusual line-up of Will Holshouser (accordion) and Brian Dewan (electric
zither) go to make up heterogenous worlds, from the enlightened folklore arrangements
with their melodic richness via hardedged distraught rock citations, down to
the soundscape cultures of the NY avant garde garden. With a weightlessness
and a never completely dissolved songstructure as a unfying strand.”
—Frankfurter Rundschau, May 5, 2000 (translated from
German)
“Mr. Garland [is] an accomplished pop baritone and determinedly self-choreographed
dancer… His lyrics mix droll directness and evocative ambiguity, and he sets
them to catchy tunes. His persona—a fallible character trying to make
sense of his life—is unpretentiously appealing.”
—New York Times, 1986
“Of the post-modern singer/songwriters, Garland is unquestionably one
of the best and most interesting.”
—Option, 1987
“[Garland’s concert] reminded us not only that we put a shell around
our lives, but that that shell can be broken at will. What more honorable service
can art provide?… Garland is a natural genius of some kind.”
—Village Voice, 1986
“No other new music figure is so sincere, so urgently comforting, as
David Garland…. He’s calm, yet uninhibited; unassuming, but a hypnotic
presence…. What impresses me most is the consistency of Garland’s inspiration.
His melodies stick in the mind, bringing the words home over and over.”
—Village Voice, 1988
“…a thinking man’s sensitive, honest, musically brilliant songwriter.”
—Kyle Gann, 2001. Stalwart advocate Kyle Gann features Garland
in the Recommended
Composers section of his website.
An interview with Garland was conducted by Mathias Baeumel via email in July, 2000. It was translated into German, and published in the August 14, 2000 edition of the newspaper Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten. You can read the English language version here.
recordings reviews
Noise In You CD, 2007
“Aptly titled, David Garland’s Noise
in You celebrates
a delirious range of sounds. Case in point is ‘Drop by Drop,’ a
simple, beautifully composed song built around a banjo. Arranged as a jeweled
miniature, there’s color from reeds, xylophones, and acoustic guitars,
as well as a robust chorus of vocals and a gleeful snare drum utilized—in
carefully chosen passages—with such giddy abandon that it becomes a sort
of built-in cheerleader for the song. There’s an orchestral sensibility
to the album, making the presence of Sufjan Stevens on a number of the tracks
a logical connection (the younger Stevens clearly having been influenced by
Garland’s several decades’ worth of recordings). There’s a
warm and poetic bearing to the lyrics, which encompass everything from anecdotes
of John Cage to a litany of cloud types. Garland strikes a perfect balance between
folkish timelessness, Tin Pan Alley pop smarts and fearless invention.”
—David Greenberger, Harp, November 2007
“Counting wrongfully ignored songwriters is an activity that leads to mixed emotions: the excitement of the discovery is often tarnished by the gnawing feeling that comes from seeing misunderstood beauty inexplicably rejected into the shadows. Case in point David Garland, who has assembled twenty years worth of outstanding recordings all to the indifference of the general public; one could ruminate bitterly on the ingratitude of our time.
“Instead
I prefer to dwell on the amazement which his ninth album elicits: ‘Noise
In You’ is one of those beacons that enduringly illuminate the life of
a music lover. Not even a thousand attentive listenings will be enough to fully
reveal the sinuous paths of the melodies and harmonies in this work by the New
Yorker [Garland]. With each measure Garland breathes completely new air, reinforced
by his sonorous twelve-string guitar, his warm baritone voice, and the sonically
inventive use of a good ten instruments (clarinet, flute, piano, banjo, mandolin…).
He could be the spiritual father of Sufjan Stevens. What’s more, there’s
no mistaking the little genius of Michigan here: Stevens participated in creating
the CD, adding to its majesty with some vocal harmonies and oboe playing. Like
him, Garland is a master musician whose brilliantly human art stimulates the
brain and cheers the heart. The only thing that remains is for this music to
be discovered by the large audience that Garland's generous lessons deserve.”
—Richard Robert, Les
Inrockuptibles (translated from French), September 20, 2007
“GARLAND'S NEW ALBUM IS A TOUR DE FORCE. When is
the last time you listened to a record that rendered subject matter such as
dioramas, pyschoarchitecture, the typographic landscape of comic strips, anthropomorphizing
of time, and one of the hottest choruses ever constructed solely from the names
of clouds...with elegance and ornate beauty? Well, for us here at Asthmatic
Kitty, even our collective music nerd ears haven't ever heard anything like
this. … we think the album is a thing of strange beauty that should heard by
many.”
—Asthmatic Kitty
“David Garland is a man with a couple of wonderful holes in his head. Into those hungry apertures fall all the sounds in the world—many of them lovely, some of them not. Once in a blue moon, some of those sounds come out again: transformed, wise and whimsical. In olden times, this would have been called alchemy; these days, we can recognize it more precisely as a gift for spinning the mundane into threads of poetry.
“That Garland is underappreciated as a singer-songwriter is somewhat ironic, given that his voice is among the most recognizable in New York City. As the host of WNYC-FM’s Spinning on Air for the past 20 years, he has made a life’s mission of gently erasing musical boundaries. Garland’s 1986 debut, Control Songs, put him squarely in the downtown avant-garde swim, alongside collaborators Meredith Monk and John Zorn.
“Some of the songs on the new Noise in You appeared
on last year’s stripped-down,
self-released Reveal. Here, they take on fantastical new colors thanks to extensive
contributions from kindred spirit Sufjan Stevens, as well as guest appearances
from Viking Moses and Mi and L’au’s Mira Romantschuk. Garland’s
voice has never sounded warmer than in these tender vignettes that examine
the science of being alive. He name-drops both experimental composer John Cage
and comic-book maverick Steve Ditko: as good an indication as any for the way
he mixes high art, personal craft and gentle whimsy into something anyone can
use.”
—Steve Smith, Time
Out New York (5 stars out of 6), July 18–25, 2007
“Probably better known for his adventurous radio shows on WNYC than
for any of his seven previous albums, this New York multi-instrumentalist has
found a musical soul mate in [Sufjan] Stevens, who graces six tracks on Garland’s
lush new disc. On this extraordinary track, their voices harmonize beautifully
over an acoustic guitar, flutes, and an oboe, the latter played by Stevens.
The result is sublime, late-summer music.”
—John Sakamoto, The
Anti-Hit List, Toronto Star, August 11, 2007
“Thanks to David Garland’s Noise in You, 2007 has been shaken out of
its discographical unremarkableness. Then again, every new album from this
too discrete songwriter is a cause for celebration. … Garland’s
writing is as witty, delicate, utterly-original-yet-so-easy-to-appreciate as
ever. … “My Contraption” (replete with the mechanical
sound of a hand-powered wooden device), “Every Bird,” “Cumulonimbus,” “I
Don’t
Want to Know,” and “Noise in You” are all very strong songs
bound to become classics. In fact, in terms of songwriting, musicianship, and
production, Noise in You is the man’s most accomplished work to date
and may very well prove to become his most timeless slice of music."
—François Couture, allmusicguide.com (4-1/2
stars out of 5)
On the Other Side of the Window CD, 2003
“On The Other Side Of The Window gets my personal prize for ‘surprise
album of the year.’"
—Beppe Colli, clocksandclouds.net (Also: interview
of David Garland by Beppe Colli.)
“This is a highly personal collection of songs…(a) brave, questing
album… Garland’s best songs have a dark, clanking momentum (“Phantom
Limb”) or melodic hook (the title track)….Garland’s instrumentation
is an odd blend of the downhome (piano, harmonica) and the outlandish (heavily
effected guitars, shovelling rocks). He sings about the search for comfort,
but the songs are restless and exploratory, an impression reinforced by his
ambitious harmonic ideas…. An admirer of Robert Wyatt and Brian Wilson,
Garland wants to kick the pop song out of bed, then take it uptown to a museum
and downtown to an avant garde club.”
—Clive Bell, The Wire, issue 240, Feb. 2004
“David Garland doesn’t record often, but each album is a finely detailed
work of witty intelligence. On the Other Side of the Window betters the proposition
of previous albums without changing much to the approach. Garland’s
intimate art rock songs are in a class of their own, but his stripped-down
melodies, subtle arrangements, use of household objects and propensity to move
into the atonal realm whenever it befits the song bring his songcraft very
close to Robert Wyatt’s.
—François Couture, allmusicguide.com
“One hears a melodic science worthy of the best pop alchemists, a clever
wording that can only come from a spirited erudite and musical arrangements
full of surprises that seem to bring new details at each listening. Open to
every experience but very demanding, this CD should be studied in song writing
schools: it is a true lesson in deportment and courage. It would be good that
David Garland's name should at last be shouted from the rooftops.”
—Richard Robert, Les
Inrockuptibles, March 10, 2004 (translated from French)
“This music, this album is absolutely necessary, a quiet counterpole
for the noise of life, a point of retreat, which is welcome. David Garland
is a large artist, an ingenious composer and arranger, into whose music one
may sink confidently. Absolute recommendation!”
—Ragazzi:
ür Erregende Musik (translated from German)
“Writing an intimate letter with every minute of his output, David imposes
a new grammar full of grace, humor and spontaneous flourishing.”
—Massimo Ricci, Touching
Extremes
“On The Other Side Of The Window is a disc that’s simple but dense,
altogether full of charm and intriguing suprises, and which calls for a few
visits to reveal its richness. That’s the case with all things that one
”
—Gilles Tordjman, Octopus (translated from French)
“Like his comrade Sport Murphy, who shares a remarkable vocal appearance
here, the American David Garland is one of these brave men who, despite the
general indifference their compatriots, dares to journey out on the ruins of
Charles Ives, Brian Wilson or the best designers of Tin Pan Alley. With its
strong content of winding melodies and surprising arrangements, this sixth
album—also featuring the too rarely heard Karen Mantler—grants
the view of secretly experimental popular song, as only the United States seems
able to produce. A must.”
—Vibrations, April, 2004
“David Garland is one of the most exciting singers and musicians of a
kind of contemporary American folkmusic.”
—Roland Altenburger
aka Orsino, orsinos lied Q
U E Rfunk Karlsruhe, Feb., 2004 (translated from German)
My Vortex Camera CD, 2000
“My Vortex Camera…was a shock: the hair-raising discovery of
a songwriter alone in his kingdom, freed completely of servitude to pop-rock
and detached from the traditional frames (blues, country, folk) onto which
so many his countrymen still stick their writing. Shaded by an accordion, an
electric zither, a flute, a bass, a toy piano, a theremin or a very discreet
guitar, the undefinable songs of My Vortex Camera bear the stamp of
a musician whose ears are open and keen, songs which manage to be of a profound
peculiarity without systematically playing the card of oddness.”
—Richard Robert, Les Inrockuptibles, June 5-11, 2001
(translated from French)
“David Garland wants to tell the world something, to give his thoughts
and words a life outside his own head, to let them affect the listeners’
feelings and trains of thought, as poets do. With bass guitar, electric zither,
autoharp and accordion, the trio conjure up melodies which sound like a mixture
of Weill evergreens, chanson, children’s songs, street ballads, country
and other American traditions”
—Anna-Bianca Krause, Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung,
May 2, 2000 (translated from German)
“If the No Mans land/Review Records label stood long ago once for the
avant-garde border constant between pop, jazz and new music, then not least
by artists such as David Garland a conservative attitude crept in—jazzed-up
folklore for adults. This must be criticized as a label tendency, even if it
can still lead in the individual case to beautiful results. ’My Vortex
Camera’ is such a beautiful result, a Chanson disk full of humor and melancholy,
thus a disk which doesn’t want to be far out, but pleases with beautiful
melodies. The danger to drift into the area of the cabaret was recognized here
and repelled even again.”
—testcard, 2000 (translated from German)
Togetherness CD, 1999
[rated “A”] “Richly detailed and elegantly produced…There’s
a love song here Sinatra would lust after, a song that’s gotta be the
first ever written about blandishments (they should be banished, not brandished),
and a science fiction song that interrupts the line ’With the girls of
Planet X/I could have some wonderful’ with a whirling electronic noise.
Underlying it all, though, is a deep compassion for the daily sadness of being
human, couched in a comforting voice that can sustain a low B-flat below the
clef like it’s no big deal.”
—Village Voice, 1999
“Togetherness is a disc of ideal proportions, a perfectly blended
synthesis that one can consider Garland’s masterpiece.”
—Richard Robert, Les Inrockuptibles, June 5-11, 2001
(translated from French)
“…disassemble(s) a century of musical tradition and reassemble(s)
it into a picture from a completely different box.”
—33 rebellions per minute, 1999
Control Songs David Garland’s 1986 solo record (released on CD in 1997)
“David Garland’s Control Songs are now digital, signaling (one wishes)
the return to public consciousness ot the best songwriter of my generation,
bar none. Filled with remarkable poetry of both words and notes, the songs
draw humorously unsentimental insights into the realities of emotional life.”
—Village Voice, 1998
“[Garland] is so singular that to make comparisons does him an injustice.
If you’d like to take a chance with some rather novel but heartfelt music,
this is fully rewarding. The sound of the record [’Control Songs’]
is outstanding, and the production is loving.”
—Stereo, 1986 (translated from German)
“Every song offers new delights.”
—Keyboard, 1987
“David Garland isn’t just a sound-artist; he is also a word-artist.
The lyrics are as carefully composed as the songs. Word plays, unusual comparisons,
and picturesque descriptions give his lyrics a poetic, expressive strength.”
—Stadtzeitung Freiburg, 1987 (translated from German)
“[’Control Songs’ is] a record that has all the attractiveness
of innovation, while reassuring the uninitiated with its restraint…. [Garland]
uses his magnificent baritone voice with a lot of variety….always surprising,
original, unique…music of great depth.”
—Intra-Musique, 1987 (translated from French)
I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times CD, 1993, David Garland
“I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times offers a masterly
reinterpretation of Brian Wilson’s work, which contrasts with the stiff
and obsessive tributes of which the gray ex-eminence of the Beach Boys is so
often the object.”
—Richard Robert, Les Inrockuptibles, June 5-11, 2001
(translated from French)
“Whatever possessed Garland to turn his considerable skills as an arranger
and vocalist to the service of Brian Wilson’s songbook is beyond me, but
this certainly has to be one of the strangest recordings of the year. The odd
thing is, not only do Wilson’s slight, lugubrious tunes hold up to all
the serious, chamber-style treatment…, but many are actually better for the
wear. Predictably, Garland doesn’t miss the chance to resurrect some obscure
numbers…. But the biggest surprise is the title cut. With it’s blaring,
calliope rhythms, counterpoint vocals on the bridge to the chorus, and Garland’s
friendly baritone throughout, the song is transformed from a maudlin whine
about arrested social development to a spirited celebration of weirdness.”
—Option, Jan./Feb. 1994
“From the line-up of musicians involved you might expect something anarchic,
but actually, in the manner of the CD cover illustration, the music is like
a dreamy fantasy. At first the music brings a listener’s mind to a dreamy
door. When you finish listening you find yourself in the room of deepest dreams.
The beautiful Garland’s Wilson-world will cleanse your heart. Supreme
dreamy pop.”
—Bounce, Fall, 1993 (translated from Japanese)
“Both Andy Paley and I have just received, listened to and enjoyed your
tape, and I feel privileged to be one of the first people to hear the finished
results. Your arrangements really captured the essence of Brian’s compositions.”
—David Leaf, Beach Boys authority, personal letter, 1991
“I reveive a lot of tapes of people doin’ Brian’s music, some
of it is good, others mostly have more heart than talent. So when I put on
your tape I was pleasantly surprised. Your tape captures the sounds in between
the melodies, which is what really endears me to listening over and over.”
—Dominic Priore, editor of “Dumb Angel Gazette,”
personal letter, 1991
The Worlds of Love CD, 2000, David Garland, Ikue Mori, Cinnie Cole; David Garland, producer
“The songs on the [‘Worlds of Love’] album work as adult,
if weird, love songs. They’re funny, a reimagining of Weill, children’s
songs and pop, all processed through a synthesizer swirl and informed with
free improvisation…. [The album is] an act of reclamation, mixing pop music
with noise and turning them into something new…. The noise of urban life
is tamed and used; the effluvium of mainstream music, where love song after
love song is mass produced, is made sensible by music that both appreciates
and pokes fun at the process”
—New York Times, 1989
Translated from Portuguese by an automated translation service (courtesy
of R. Stevie Moore): “one projecto of the multinstrumentista and crooner
David Garland, also author of the bonanza ’Songs Control.’
…Ground of cremoso Moog, laugh of banjo and accordion, programmings and vocalizations ’nonsense.’ Pop
becomes vanguard and vice versa.”
—Fernando Magalhaes, Publico, 2001
“a thoughtful, often-humorous collection of sounds, improvising within
well-established song structures to create a sense of disorder within order”
—Ear Magazine, 1987
“[The Worlds of Love] creates an ingratiating digital-folk-love-song
tradition I can’t hear often enough. Garland is somehow both mild-mannered
and totally uninhibited, Cinnie Cole is homey, and the electronic/banjo arrangements
(very well recorded) are funky enough to chase away self-pity.”
—Village Voice, 1989
“a refreshing medley of rock, jazz, and off-kilter avant-garde. A record
for listening and dreaming, and in between, bits and pieces that are provocative.”
—Mottek, 1989 (translated from German)
radio reviews
“David Garland’s adventurous music show is always an ear-opening experience.” —Time Out New York, May 23, 2002
Spinning on Air cited as one of ten “bright spots in New York music radio” in The New York Times, 2/4/96. “David Garland explores in detail the gray area between pop and art.” —Neil Strauss
“Garland’s fascination with the music of Juan-Garcia Esquivel and other fifties Space Age Bachelor Pad composers helped spur the genre’s now raging revival.” —Metropolis, 9/97
Garland rated “Best Radio Deejay,” New York Press, 1990. “The radio star’s alive and well. Each [Spinning On Air] show’s careful focus shows a quirky imagination and knowledge of obscure, tantalizing music.”
“New York has dozens of radio stations. But nowhere are the sounds as delightfully unpredictable…as on Spinning On Air. Spinning On Air is noncommercial radio at its very best. [It is] programmed by… David Garland, who has perfect pitch when it comes to blending songs.” —Pan Am Clipper magazine, “Insider’s Guide to New York,” 9/90
Spinning on Air Hawaiian War Chant Extravaganza featured in Honolulu Magazine, 9/90, in a six-page article, complete with a reproduction of the “diploma” given to listeners who endured three hours of the Hawaiian War Chant. Also featured in Crain’s New York Business, 8/21/89, “Offbeat slices of life float over airwaves.”
Garland’s previous show on WKCR highlighted as one of only six examples of “New York Radio That Doesn’t Suck” in Village Voice, 6/2/87. “Garland sums up the sensibility of the whole downtown music audience.”