USC faculty release collaborative collection of music
January 8, 2024
University of South Carolina School of Music faculty David Kirkland Garner and Greg Stuart are pleased to announce the release of “Short Stories, vol. 1.” The collection is a tapestry of structured improvisation and through-composed music constructed around six field recordings made by John and Ruby Lomax during their 1939 Southern Mosaic trip, during which they documented hundreds of hours of folk songs and instrumentals from Texas to Virginia.
Engineered by Jeff Francis at the University of South Carolina and released by Sourwood Records, recordings were made in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Arkansas, and each one presents a unique window into southern music and life in 1939, while also existing as a precious sound object in itself.
“The distortion and static draws me closer and enchants me. I find myself wondering about who the musicians were, where they lived, how they lived, their family histories, and more. For me, then, each of these recordings feels like an unexplored story about a specific person in a specific place in a specific time,” says Garner. “The title ‘Short Stories‘ also points towards the rich tradition of Southern Gothic literature with authors like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison.”
The album unfolds in six distinct sound portraits built around field recordings while exploring nostalgia, noise, racial justice, and the tension between the recorded past and the live present. Garner says he hopes to give forgotten voices another chance to be heard, histories to be told, and to highlight moments of particular beauty that might otherwise be overlooked.
