Before one even gets to the music on the new Marc Gartband CD ‘Fatwa’ one comes face to face with the cover first. ‘Laughing Jesus’, painted by Minneapolis based artist June Moon in 1975, in her own words, “represents the transcendence of spiritual awareness - that in the depths of our sorrow lies the awareness of the pure joy and ecstasy of Eternal Love”. Marc Gartman (Two Many Banjos, Coyote) thought the picture summed up his thoughts regarding all the different songs on what he proudly calls his most accomplished CD to date.
Predominately recorded live to tape in June 2010 by famed producer/songwriter Rich Mattson (Ol’ Yeller, The Tisdales) the session went fast and easy. 13 songs were recorded, 11 made the CD and there’s about as many genres of music on Fatwa as there is material to be heard.
It’s worth noting that Gartman wrote all the songs on his 8 string Irish bouzouki using a unique tuning that he stumbled upon about two years back. It has also been one year since the last Gartband CD ‘I Am A Fool For You’ which was also an all bouzouki affair. It’s a bit unfair though to speak only of the bouzouki on this record for while the songs were written on the instrument it’s the band on the session that truly makes the music come alive.
The core quartet for the album brought bold, sonic statements to each and every note they recorded. Dave Carroll (Trampled By Turtles) on banjo and vocals, Matt Mobley (Two Many Banjos) on upright bass and Bryan ‘Lefty’ Johnson (Two Many Banjos) on percussion. There were also some very special guests on many of the tracks that are worth noting. Both Ryan Young on fiddle and Erik Berry on mandolin from Trampled By Turtles raised the bar on their individual tracks. The somewhat indescribable additions from Duluth iconoclasts Adam Sippola on vocals and Kathy Mctavish (Cello Dreams) on cello almost defy characterization.
Folks might also wonder why this is called Marc Gartband as opposed to Two Many Banjos since both bands share the same members. This is a fair question indeed. It seems Gartman isn’t having any trouble writing songs at the moment and different tunes go in different places. For the time being Gartman has resolved in his head to keep the banjo material on TMB records and bouzouki creations somewhere else. In his brain this is also the 2nd in a planned trilogy of Gartband bouzouki records; the third will come out in 2011.
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