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Put your hands on the remote! browse music »matter of life & death by Don Charles & Deb Gessner
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fave it Modern Folk | Gentle
13 tracks | 53 minutes
Released Jul 2006
on Don Charles & Deb Gessner
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- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:36 Rain lyrics BUY MP3 04:36 Rain lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:36 Rain
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:38 Mama Start the Fire lyrics BUY MP3 04:38 Mama Start the Fire lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:38 Mama Start the Fire
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:15 Weird Little Girl lyrics BUY MP3 04:15 Weird Little Girl lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:15 Weird Little Girl
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:32 When the Monsoons Finally Came lyrics BUY MP3 03:32 When the Monsoons Finally Came lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:32 When the Monsoons Finally Came
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:46 Row lyrics BUY MP3 04:46 Row lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:46 Row
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:16 Juanita the Baker lyrics BUY MP3 04:16 Juanita the Baker lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:16 Juanita the Baker
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:29 Whirlybird lyrics BUY MP3 02:29 Whirlybird lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:29 Whirlybird
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:16 Tater Patch/little Red Rockin' Chair lyrics BUY MP3 04:16 Tater Patch/little Red Rockin' Chair lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:16 Tater Patch/little Red Rockin' Chair
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:53 Matter of Life and Death lyrics BUY MP3 03:53 Matter of Life and Death lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:53 Matter of Life and Death
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 05:19 Spinning the Mud Turtle lyrics BUY MP3 05:19 Spinning the Mud Turtle lyrics "GIFT MP3" 05:19 Spinning the Mud Turtle
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:26 It Coulda Been Me lyrics BUY MP3 04:26 It Coulda Been Me lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:26 It Coulda Been Me
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:05 Aaron Dreams of Bees lyrics BUY MP3 03:05 Aaron Dreams of Bees lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:05 Aaron Dreams of Bees
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:22 The Wind in the Willow lyrics BUY MP3 04:22 The Wind in the Willow lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:22 The Wind in the Willow
. Known for their intertwining vocals and crystalline sense of musical space, D-Squared's painterly tunes and lyric-driven songs call to the heart like favorite stories that you haven’t heard yet.
Bio / Background
"I am always on the lookout for people who are doing something different and innovative on the harp and I think
[Don and Deb have] discovered a whole new breadth of expression for the instrument. Deb Gessner’s harp interweaves gracefully with Don Charles’ guitar and vocals, to create a new sound on the face of the singer/songwriter scene. The result is a stark and hypnotic landscape of sound deftly drawing the picture of the great Southwest, their home. In their music, this duo from Arizona has chosen to tackle tough issues and the meaning of it all. The result is well worth checking out.
Their first release, Matter of Life and Death, has an earthy feel as if freshly dug from the parched soil. The CD opens with a highly-percussive, almost a cappella, song entitled “Rain”, which paints a picture of a rainstorm through the sounds of the congas, the harp, and the vocals themselves.
↓ more ↓From this start, we proceed through a series of songs about such diverse subjects as the lottery, use of public lands (the great outdoors), baking bread, and relationships. There’s a nice song about how we are tied to the earth, “The Wind in the Willow”, which features a delightful tradeoff of lines between the guitar and the harp. Besides all these original songs, there is also a traditional Appalachian track, “Tater Patch/Little Red Rocking Chair”, which gives the impression of a gentle lullaby by the way the tunes are slowed down and backed by the harp in this arrangement.
My favorite things on this recording are the instrumentals. Almost tone poems, they delicately paint a picture of the subject matter through music. “When the Monsoons Finally Came” gives the textures and sounds of rain arriving in the parched southwest. In “Whirlybird” we get the image of maple seeds spinning down from the trees, over and over again. My very favorite is entitled “Aaron Dreams of Bees”, a musical story of a small boy busy gathering pollen with the bees. This waltz has just the right timbre, with the harp taking the lead with a slightly Slavic sound, backed by concertina, mandola, and clarinet. It’s a merry-go-round of the joy of investigation."
-Jo Morrison (Folk Harp Journal, Issue 105, 1999)
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