Flying Rivers by George Christian & Jeff Gburek

Flying Rivers refers to the vaporization canopy of the Amazonian rain-forest, an eco-system whose loss contributes in part to global climate change. The album began to take shape in the era when deregulation of clearing the rain-forest began to take place, burning out territories of the forest in order to transform them into agricultural tracts, timber, while displacing plant, animal and indigenous human populations. The music spans several months of exchanges of sound-files and over-dubbing, a trans-oceanic correspondence campaign.

George Christian lives in Stella Maris quarter of Salvador, the capital of Bahia province in Brazil. Jeff Gburek is based in Poznan, Poland while the bulk of his instrumental tracks were recorded in Bulgaria in the summer of 2019. The album was finished over the course of 2019-2020 and therefore encompasses almost a full year of deliberation, processing, labor and thought. There is a constant play between traditions, innovations and references to transitions in cultural-historical time are registered on many levels, perhaps most consciously in their Homage to João Gilberto who passed away in July, 2019. Further evidence of cultural and ecological sharing can be found in the "Trial by Fires" track where we hear free saxophonist Thelmo Cristovam and later when we hear in the soundscape entitled "Amazonas" some of Thelmo Cristovam's Mamori Lake field recordings which supply the cantus firmus, so to speak, over which play the voices speaking Portuguese of Ana Kavalis (Cuba/ Berlin), Cristina Ferreia (Poznan/ Porto, Portugal) , Denize Mota (Poznan/ Manaus, Brazil).

Instrumentation

George Christian: voice, Ibanez V72 acoustic guitar, Brazilian telecaster, pedals, found objects.

Jeff Gburek: Gilmore acoustic guitar, Hoefner electric, ebow, percussion, samples and field recordings.

Thelmo Cristovam: saxophone (7) & field recordings (9).

Ana Kavalis, Cristina Ferreia, Denize Mota: voices (9)

The poem recited in Amazonas is a spectral ghost poem resulting from some lines written in English by Jeff Gburek which were subsequently translated into Brazilian Portuguese by George Christian. Our chorus, the ones giving fleshly voice to the poetry, are a mixture of native speakers of Portuguese and a Cubana who has traveled among the Brazilians extensively. Many thanks, gracias, obrigados to all collaborators and dziękuję to Karolina Ossowska once again for the cover art from her quickly expanding collagist's oeuvre.

-- Jeff Gburek

"I want to send my thanks to the opportunity of this partnership with you, Jeff, to all the other participants who made this album really possible. And I want to dedicate this album to the free spirits that are still striving to survive, facing the lockdown of those turbulent times we're living on Earth.
Remembering now that, unfortunately, Brazilian indigenous people are dying not only because of the miners and the agrobusiness people, but now also of COVID-19... Let's pray for their survival."

-- George Christian

Não se trata apenas de mais um novo álbum meu, ou somente de uma nova parceria com Jeff Gburek. "Flying Rivers" é uma aventura sonora com um sério propósito de usar a música experimental com um discurso de conscientização em torno dos problemas de um planeta em um curso de destruição, que é o nosso. O álbum tem um aspecto conceitual que precisa e pode ser dirimido a cada faixa. As grandes motivações que eu e Jeff tivemos vieram de circunstâncias muito reais - eu, como brasileiro, testemunhando notícias sobre a espoliação política do país em que vivo, a destruição da Amazônia e a ameaça de extinção dos povos indígenas, e Jeff se sensibilizando tanto quanto eu, e pondo em questão a incerteza quanto às questões climáticas. Enfim, por trás de muita arte, há muita realidade por aqui. E espero que escutem este trabalho com a devida atenção. -- GC

Guitarist, composer, sound designer, field recordist, shortwave radio poet, blending electro-acoustic, electronica, spectral comp., cracked circuits, sounding organic objects with an ear towards earth voices. Studied Javanese and Balinese gamelan and theories of Partch and Xenakis. Working with dance/theater/butoh co. Djalma Primordial Science. More than 400 concerts throughout Europe since 2005.

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