Hailing from the Appalachian foothills of southwest Virginia, Rance Garrison has been writing songs since his early childhood, learning to play guitar and piano along the way. For the past year, he has been writing and recording his debut album, “Black Crow,” handling the production and engineering duties himself and working out of a small makeshift studio in the house that his late great-grandfather built.
“Black Crow” is very much a “night-time” album, an exploration of what mystics have often called “the dark night of the soul.” Having been recorded nearly entirely in the wee hours of the early morning with lyrics focused on themes of mortality, faith, and doubt, and the end of childhood, all subjects that the twenty-five year old singer/songwriter found himself experiencing and exploring following the deaths of three family members from 2008 to 2009.
Musically, the album marks a departure from the acoustic guitar driven folk that gained Garrison a small following while playing open mic nights in Johnson City, Tennessee in 2007. Instead, Black Crow features a heavily layered sound of electric and acoustic guitars, piano, and synthesizers as well as electronic and acoustic percussion, drawing on musical influences such as Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Iron and Wine, Bon Iver, and the Twilight Singers. "Black Crow" promises to take listeners on sonic journey through dreamy soundscapes that are as dreary as rainy days in purgatory and as uplifting as heavenly choirs.
All songs written and produced by Rance Garrison
Rance Garrison: keyboards, guitars, vocals, bass, and electronic and acoustic percussion
Keaton Lawson: percussion on "In the Desert"; backing vocals on "Gravestones" and "In the Desert"
Josh Ely: drums on "Black Crow"
The rain sounds in "The Last Question" and "Seven Trumpets" were sampled from freesound.org and were created by user RHumphries and licensed under the Creative Commons attribution license.
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