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Gabriel Garzón-Montano: Tiny Desk Concert

Gabriel Garzón-Montano spent three years writing and recording his beautiful, dense album Jardin -- but for his Tiny Desk visit, he stripped it all down to two elements, the piano and his voice.
Gabriel Garzon-Montano performs a Tiny Desk Concert on May 3, 2017. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

I was, admittedly, thrown for a loop when Gabriel Garzón-Montano told me that he wanted to perform unaccompanied, just him and a piano. The meticulousness of his work is, a three-year creative process in which Gabriel plays most of the instruments, tracking them to two-inch tape, layering its overall sound. takes its title as an umbrella; fruits, bugs and other plants are the driving metaphors tying together this dense work, which blooms over successive listens. Garzón-Montano doesn't necessarily wear his heart on his sleeve — he forces you to listen and peel the layers back.

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