David Garza
This Euphoria (Atlantic)
by Jamie Kiffel
David Garza is unafraid to move inside his music. He twists his voice, genielike, into seductive vocal apparitions; light, sighing falsettos, Beatlesesque midrange harmonics, and fuzzy, garbled funk psychedelia. Garza dabbles in technotyping taps in “Core (This Time)” with a copy machine swish introduction; in “Discoball World” in which a close and clear voice suddenly becomes scratchy and distant with the lyric, “We’d listen to the left side of the radio,” and in “Slave” where we receive an unexpected rasta reggae grin. Not only does Garza choose his influences well, but he wields them like professional juggling clubs: he combines his musical dexterity with the finest starting materials, and then makes them spin, twist, and do dazzling tricks. Bongos lend the groove of a drum circle to “This Euphoria;” pentatonic tinkling guitars on “Lost” connote Zen thought without absurdly spacey attempts at Zen poetry, and even a string trio adds to the texture of the album without showcasing the instruments to brag of their presence. Instead, each element on the disc weaves organically throughout the others to create a fascinating, shifting animal which constantly changes its colors to reveal a slow, musical rainbow.
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