Butterfly Gardens by David Moore

Butterfly Gardens
For Stretched Piano & Pump Organ

One day near the end of winter, I was teetering at the edge of myself – struggling to keep my heart in one piece. So I went to where I usually go when I need to quiet my mind, a small slice of a park near the expressway called Butterfly Gardens.

Sitting with headphones, I stumbled into a pair of recordings I’d made almost five years earlier, the last time things felt this intensely difficult. I sat there listening, and was reminded why I’d stashed them away – they felt incomplete. Now I was struck with how to finish them. I rushed home to the pump organ and recorded this pair of, I suppose, duets with that me of five years ago. In some surprising way we were able to comfort each other across half a decade. It was far out.

The process for putting together a longer piece of music for me is usually measured in years, but finishing this happened very fast and very instinctually. I hope you enjoy it. It’s the closest thing to purely ambient music I’ve made in a long time.

HUGE thank you to Nicholas Principe + People Teeth, who heard what I was up to and jumped swiftly on a transformative mix and master. Thanks as well to Brian and Kelli, who built the machine (Monome Grid) I used to stretch and sequence the piano. Thanks to my wife Stephanie, who is everything to me. And thanks to all of you. As it turns out, this is the first release solely under my own name in quite a long time, and it feels like just now a beginning. DM

New York City pianist and composer David Moore sits at the vanguard of instrumental music.
As founder and leader of minimalist music ensemble Bing & Ruth, Moore has prioritized grace and texture - form built on feeling. Moore’s latest release, Let The Moon Be A Planet, is a collaborative album with guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn.