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Garden Variety (for electric kora)

by Daniel Berkman

supported by
Philip Graham
Philip Graham thumbnail
Philip Graham I love the West African musical traditions of kora playing (Toumani Diabete and Ballake Sissoko, anyone?), and I also love Daniel Berkman's electric kora explorations into and out of those same traditions. Favorite track: Garden Variety #4.
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about

Garden Variety is the follow up release to my electric kora album Fog Variations which I recorded in April, 2020 on Facebook Live.

Similar in form, instrumentation, aesthetic design and sonic space, Garden Variety is another live and improvised electric kora soundscape.

It is different in the sense that it was recorded in a new environment, a community garden at Rhode Island and 18th St. in Potrero Hill in San Francisco and so the overall vibe is a little different, where the birds and rustling leaves may influence my musical decision making as much as my looper might.

These Facebook Live performances in the garden and in my room are a product of many years of honing my skills with various instruments, especially with kora and looping techniques and it wasn't until the shelter in place due to covid-19 that I felt it necessary to share my music in this way, raw and unfiltered, my spontaneous creative process.

I've been playing in the garden every Wednesday and Friday morning, usually with my acoustic chromatic kora, picking out new and made up patterns, strange tunings and textured melodies.
But on May 22nd, my dad's birthday, I decided to bring out the "Fog Variations" rig, my battery powered devices and again my electric kora from Kumbengo Koras.
I set up the iPhone and Go: Mixer and off I went, Live on Facebook.

Garden Variety is a companion to Fog Variations and perhaps an indication that there is much more to explore here, that these are merely starting points for even more adventurous music for the electric kora to emerge.

Stay tuned...

Daniel Berkman 2020

credits

released June 19, 2020

Music composed and performed on Electric Kora and Devices by:
Daniel Berkman
iPhone videography and photography:
Daniel Berkman
Mastered by:
Daniel Berkman

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Daniel Berkman San Francisco, California

Daniel Berkman is a Bay Area electronic musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, looper and innovator of the Kora (a 21-stringed harp-lute from West Africa) and it's modern counterpart, the Gravikord.
Daniel composes for dance, film, instrumental, vocal and also has recordings under his electronic music moniker Colfax.
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