Andy Garbi’s critically acclaimed debut album The Sound of One embodies his personal experiences of extreme emotional and geographical environments. A deeply intimate journey explored through crystalline vocal counterpoint and skeletal horns, solo piano and finely wrought string textures, it has been featured on national radio in several countries and championed by leading figures across the arts.
“On the occasions when I have found myself well and truly out of my comfort zone there are moments when something quite profound happens. It’s difficult to describe…but it’s like falling between the cracks of what is being experienced. The preciousness of life becomes magnified and for an instant, no matter how extreme the situation, you feel ok.
I have experienced these flashes crossing a volcanic desert in Iceland with winds so strong it lifted a car clean off the road and also crawling on my hands and knees, stricken with altitude sickness at 15,000ft in the Himalayas. For me there is no difference between these more exotic situations to that moment of calm one finds in a sea of grief brought on by loss of some description.
They are all unchartered waters that we often haven’t faced before and yet somehow we survive.
If we find, if only for an instant, that raft of ‘otherness’ we can adapt to pretty much any situation. The Sound of One is my way of trying to capture those fragments.”
Andy Garbi: voice / composition / production
James Hesford: cello / violin / viola
“An extraordinary album” Classic FM magazine
“Inspirational…Garbi’s extraordinary, multi-octave vocal range dazzles” Arwa Haider – Metro
“Melodies turn into natural phenomena, into a foggy morning or a swelling ocean. Yet they are all pervaded by a glowing grace, a sublime beauty and dignity” Zillo Magazine
“This is a remarkable album…It moves with much deeply felt sensitivity and beauty: with echoes of Samuel Barber’s famous Adagio and Debussy‘s Des Pas sur la Neige plus Brian Eno’s old school ambient” Newmusicreviews.co.uk
“vocals float over one another to conjure glacial imagery – Garbi creates an eerie collection of sounds – the kind of music that could aptly soundtrack a David Lynch or Darren Aronofsky film.” Muso Magazine