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Building Harmonic Castles

by Alex Brubaker

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1.
First Dance 03:12
2.
3.
Catwalk 02:38
4.
Summer Camp 02:25
5.
Refuge 03:21
6.
Waterfall 04:56
7.
8.
9.
Wedding Song 06:14
10.
Skyeburst 06:05

about

"Building Harmonic Castles" is Brubaker's third studio release. Recorded, mixed, and mastered with Alex Anderson at Tree of Life Studio in New Milford, Connecticut.

The album is split into two halves (actually optimized for vinyl, which will probably be available early 2021):

Side A: Tracks 1-6. This is for the purists. Nothing but me and my guitar, and maybe a little bit of studio reverb. In my opinion, this is the best melodic content I have produced, and all of these pieces are very personal. The album starts off with First Dance; a slow, contemplative piece I wrote for a friend's first dance at his wedding. Side A then winds around from a song about the people of Burkina Faso (A Peaceful Nation; An Arid Land); a song about walking cats (Catwalk); a fun piece about summer camp (Summer Camp); one about having compassion in a cold world (Refuge); and ending on a piece written specifically for the guitar it was played on (Waterfall). Waterfall then deviates from the formula and ends with a slowly oscillating reversed loop to peacefully close out the end of Side A.

Side B: Tracks 7-10. This half of the album was brought about as I began to play on more bills with other bands, rather than fingerstyle guitarists and singer/songwriters. I realized very early in this venture that a 20-30 minute set played to teens and 20-somethings couldn't be presented with story telling in the way that I would to perform a 2 hour gig at a winery. Instead, musical engagement was necessary from the second I walked on stage until my set ended. As a result, I began to weave in more experimental elements from influences in post-rock and ambient music into my performances in order to link songs together, allowing for tuning changes under the veil of glitchy loops and drawn out delays instead of silent stares.
Side B begins to touch on that in the tiniest way, but starts off bold with the one-man post-rock orchestra of As Mountains Fall Into The Sea. It follows up with a piece about trying to balance life's responsibilities (The Balancing Act); a re-recording of Wedding Song from my last studio album; and then Wedding Song seamlessly transitions into Skyeburst, a piece I put together before I had shoulder surgery in 2017, titled after the trail where I had originally torn my labrum during a snowboarding accident in which a kid cut me off in moguls (moral of the story: next time, run the kid over).

credits

released October 9, 2020

All guitar written and performed by Alex Brubaker.

Guitar: hand built by Todd Johnston, Oracle Guitars
Recording, Mixing, and Mastering: Alex Anderson, Tree of Life Studio
Album Art: Mara Sousa, Lazy Sparrow Studio
Digital Design: Sean de Burca, sdburca.com

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about

Alex Brubaker Denver, Pennsylvania

Brubaker is a percussive fingerstyle guitarist. Combining traditional, melodic fingerstyle playing with the rhythmic drive from percussive hits on the body and strings of the guitar, he couples technique with elements such as live looping to create complex soundscapes and to help to carve out his own, unique style. ... more

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