P.G. Six: Murmurs & Whispers (Drag City)
Harp has been an important part of P.G. Six’s musical voice since the beginning of his recorded output. And from what we can gather, harp probably played something in his practice well before that too.
We first heard Pat’s harp on Tower Recordings’s early releases, buried in the very broad lo-fidelity and instrumentation of releases like The Fraternity of Moonwalkers (Audible Hiss, 1996).
With Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites (Amish, 2001) and The Well of Memory (Amish, 2004), Pat’s harp assumed greater focus, higher fidelity and took on a wider space within his arrangements. Amish also issued Music from the Sherman Box Series and Other Works in 2006, an often-overlooked release dedicated almost exclusively to harp études in conversation with and accompaniment for a 2005 exhibition of multimedia collages by Chris Krol; Sherman Boxes is all instrumental, short harp pieces indebted to both ancient and modern classical traditions.
All of this harp history didn’t quite prepare us for Murmurs & Whispers, our favorite song-based recording of 2023.
On this album, P.G. Six returns to what we love best about his work, while providing a much more focused and thorough exploration of the harp in relation to the song. Begin with the entirely surprising track that concludes the LP: ‘Foggy Hill’ includes chords (on guitar!!) that we’ve never heard (and we’ve heard it all) on any P.G. Six release before. And go from there, as the rest of the album similarly surprises, especially when original and traditional pieces and/or themes crossover within a single work. Some songs Pat has been performing in various forms live for years (please see the album version of ‘I Don’t Want to be Free,’ which begins with phrases straight out of The Well of Memory and/or Parlor Tricks and ‘Tell me Death,’ which has been circulating between Gubler and Sharron Kraus for some time).
And most especially, arrangement and accompaniment add dimensions to this album. In the spirit of the pandemic, these songs were recorded by Mike Fellows in assorted houses Upstate, a New York folk/volk pod if ever there was one.
Pat is joined here by Wednesday Knudsen, Clark Griffin, and Mayuko Fujino.
Harp has been an important part of P.G. Six’s musical voice since the beginning of his recorded output. And from what we can gather, harp probably played something in his practice well before that too.
We first heard Pat’s harp on Tower Recordings’s early releases, buried in the very broad lo-fidelity and instrumentation of releases like The Fraternity of Moonwalkers (Audible Hiss, 1996).
With Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites (Amish, 2001) and The Well of Memory (Amish, 2004), Pat’s harp assumed greater focus, higher fidelity and took on a wider space within his arrangements. Amish also issued Music from the Sherman Box Series and Other Works in 2006, an often-overlooked release dedicated almost exclusively to harp études in conversation with and accompaniment for a 2005 exhibition of multimedia collages by Chris Krol; Sherman Boxes is all instrumental, short harp pieces indebted to both ancient and modern classical traditions.
All of this harp history didn’t quite prepare us for Murmurs & Whispers, our favorite song-based recording of 2023.
On this album, P.G. Six returns to what we love best about his work, while providing a much more focused and thorough exploration of the harp in relation to the song. Begin with the entirely surprising track that concludes the LP: ‘Foggy Hill’ includes chords (on guitar!!) that we’ve never heard (and we’ve heard it all) on any P.G. Six release before. And go from there, as the rest of the album similarly surprises, especially when original and traditional pieces and/or themes crossover within a single work. Some songs Pat has been performing in various forms live for years (please see the album version of ‘I Don’t Want to be Free,’ which begins with phrases straight out of The Well of Memory and/or Parlor Tricks and ‘Tell me Death,’ which has been circulating between Gubler and Sharron Kraus for some time).
And most especially, arrangement and accompaniment add dimensions to this album. In the spirit of the pandemic, these songs were recorded by Mike Fellows in assorted houses Upstate, a New York folk/volk pod if ever there was one.
Pat is joined here by Wednesday Knudsen, Clark Griffin, and Mayuko Fujino.
Harp has been an important part of P.G. Six’s musical voice since the beginning of his recorded output. And from what we can gather, harp probably played something in his practice well before that too.
We first heard Pat’s harp on Tower Recordings’s early releases, buried in the very broad lo-fidelity and instrumentation of releases like The Fraternity of Moonwalkers (Audible Hiss, 1996).
With Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites (Amish, 2001) and The Well of Memory (Amish, 2004), Pat’s harp assumed greater focus, higher fidelity and took on a wider space within his arrangements. Amish also issued Music from the Sherman Box Series and Other Works in 2006, an often-overlooked release dedicated almost exclusively to harp études in conversation with and accompaniment for a 2005 exhibition of multimedia collages by Chris Krol; Sherman Boxes is all instrumental, short harp pieces indebted to both ancient and modern classical traditions.
All of this harp history didn’t quite prepare us for Murmurs & Whispers, our favorite song-based recording of 2023.
On this album, P.G. Six returns to what we love best about his work, while providing a much more focused and thorough exploration of the harp in relation to the song. Begin with the entirely surprising track that concludes the LP: ‘Foggy Hill’ includes chords (on guitar!!) that we’ve never heard (and we’ve heard it all) on any P.G. Six release before. And go from there, as the rest of the album similarly surprises, especially when original and traditional pieces and/or themes crossover within a single work. Some songs Pat has been performing in various forms live for years (please see the album version of ‘I Don’t Want to be Free,’ which begins with phrases straight out of The Well of Memory and/or Parlor Tricks and ‘Tell me Death,’ which has been circulating between Gubler and Sharron Kraus for some time).
And most especially, arrangement and accompaniment add dimensions to this album. In the spirit of the pandemic, these songs were recorded by Mike Fellows in assorted houses Upstate, a New York folk/volk pod if ever there was one.
Pat is joined here by Wednesday Knudsen, Clark Griffin, and Mayuko Fujino.