Garth Stevenson

"Garth Stevenson is a Brooklyn-based composer and double bassist. Raised in the mountains of Western Canada, nature became his primary inspiration and the common thread between his life and music. In the past four years, Garth has released two full-length solo albums, informed by his experiences carrying his 150-year-old double bass to the woods, the beach, and the desert. His most recent and critically acclaimed release, Flying, is a seventy-five minute homage to a recent life-changing trip to Antarctica. Of Flying, iTunes praises, “Garth Stevenson joins the likes of Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, and David Sylvian as a practitioner of this ethereal yet accessible genre… ‘The Southern Sea’ offers the aural equivalent of effortlessly swimming underwater without ever needing to come up for air.” Flying was recently featured on WNYC’s New Sounds radio program along with Ben Frost and Yo-Yo Ma and was featured on the main page of iTunes. His month-long journey to Antarctica took place on an ice-breaker full of renowned artists including author Cormac McCarthy and actress Juliette Binoche. Stevenson played his double bass to seals, penguins and icebergs while composing the score and acting in the feature film directed by Scott Cohen, featuring Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men. Roger Payne, the famous whale researcher and first to record the humpback whales in the 60′s was also on the trip. “I spent a few weeks prior to the trip learning to adapt whale calls on my bass by playing along with Roger’s Songs Of The Humpback Whales recording the same way I used to play along with Charlie Mingus albums. One evening, in the middle of a four day open sea crossing between South Georgia and Antarctica, I gave a concert at sunset on the bow of our ship. I was improvising and creating layers with my loop pedal then started imitating whale calls on the bass. A few minutes later twelve sei whales came and swam next to our vessel!”' ...more http://garthstevenson.com/ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.