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“David Garland…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.”-Steve Smith, Time Out New York
“Garland is a superb, crazily imaginative songwriter.”
-Kyle Gann, Village Voice
“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.”
-Steve Smith, Time Out New York
David Garland’s first album, “Control Songs,” was released in 1987. Since then he’s continued to create songs that display his unique vision of life and the possibilities of the song form. His recordings and performances have included musical innovators such as Meredith Monk, John Zorn, Sufjan Stevens, and Christian Marclay, and, on Garland’s new album, “Conversations with the Cinnamon Skeleton,” Vashti Bunyan and Sean Lennon. At Joe’s Pub, Garland will perform songs from the new album.
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"Stamper, himself, resides in the intersection of a variety of things – between pop and experiment, between formal elegance and confessional self-expression, between the improvisatory flow of jazz and the rigors of classical composition. It’s the kind of balancing act that makes choosing one thing over another seem cloddish."
-Dusted Magazine
Joshua Stamper is a restless composer and remarkably active collaborator. Equally at home in the jazz, classical, avant-garde, and indie/alternative worlds, he has worked extensively with such luminaries as Sufjan Stevens, Danielson, Twin Sister, Robyn Hitchcock, Emil Nikolaisen (Serena Maneesh), Keven Shea (Mostly Other People Do The Killing), Rogerio Boccato, Kurt Weisman, etc.
In his own work, he creates rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic textures that move like water bugs skittering across a pond—at once mysterious, humorous, and beguiling. The music is a study of contrast and cohesion: a collection of seemingly unmarryable qualities that exist happily ever after. Meticulous arrangements are woven through group improvisations while noble beauty is matched step for step by rambunctious playfulness.
