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How Gabriel Garzón-Montano Flipped a Drake Check Into a Stunning Stones Throw Debut [Interview]
How Gabriel Garzón-Montano Flipped a Drake Check Into a Stunning Stones Throw Debut [Interview]
Photo of Gabriel Garzón-Montano taken by Joe Hollier.

How Gabriel Garzón-Montano Flipped a Drake Check Into a Stunning Stones Throw Debut [Interview]

How Gabriel Garz\u00f3n-Montano Flipped a Drake Check Into a Stunning Stones Throw Debut [Interview] Photo of Gabriel Garzón-Montano taken by Matthew Scott.

Like all heavy-hearted twenty-somethings, Gabriel Garzon-Montano had to learn quick to roll or get rolled over. Now, as a bright star in Stones Throw's beaming roster, the Brooklyn native is well adjusted to his newfound visibility. It came early and without notice, well before he was opening Lenny Kravitz shows and being adopted into one of music's most revered creative communities. Gabriel's story is one of those right-place-right-time moments you chalk up to industry folklore, when an overlooked gem becomes the backbone of a platinum album by arguably the most famous person on the northern hemisphere. All on the good word of a well-intentioned homie.

On his 2014 release, Bishouné: Alma Del Huila, Garzon-Montano tucked four generations of r&b chops into a svelte six-track salute to A-list soul pioneers and his French-Colombian heritage. "Six Eight," sits top of the stack; the honey-coated, slow-burning little cousin to D'Angelo's "Untitled," sampled by Noah 40 on Drake's "Jungle." A goldmine PR bump for anyone on any rung of the ladder. But then the check comes, and you and your vices are off to the races derailing whatever creative pursuits may have been underway. Like, say a new album. Or just being a functional human in NYC. But instead of going Houdini, Garzon-Montano flipped Drizzy's check into a stunning full-length debut, captured entirely on 2-inch tape at an analog wizard's Hudson, NY hideaway.

Jardín, or "garden" in French, as he explained to me upon request of a proper pronunciation (not-that-worldly American writing,) builds on Garzon-Montano's r&b foundations, but blooms into something slightly stranger, slightly funkier. As a young musician, Garzon-Montano's earliest influences were the transcontinental sounds that filled his childhood home, curated by his mother, a cellist and pianist who performed with Phillip Glass in the nineties. Shades of cumbia in "Bombia Fabrica" and sweeping string arrangements throughout draw from these nostalgic incubations, when a 12-year-old multi-hyphenate-to-be develops their first understandings of melody and rhythm from pedigreed pop and fusion stars like Paul Simon and Steely Dan.  The result is a red-eyed r&b and hip-hop record with a Sgt. Peppers glow; warm, wistful and full of life.

Hear Jardín below and flip through the pages to read how an uncommonly rich upbringing in music guided Garzon-Montano through industry pitfalls and helped capture a heart-healing record in analog. Purchase the album digitally on iTunes or head over to Stones Throw to pick up a copy on wax.

How Gabriel Garz\u00f3n-Montano Flipped a Drake Check Into a Stunning Stones Throw Debut [Interview] Photo of Gabriel Garzón-Montano taken by Joe Hollier.

GGM:"Jardín". It's garden either in French or in Spanish.

OKP: How long have you been working on this one?

GGM: Literally, from the time I finished my last one.

OKP: Where does the recording process typically begin for you?

GGM: A lot of the times at home. Everything pretty much got fully fleshed out in Logic for this album, Garage Band for the first one. I kinda just record everything until I can't.

OKP: What's it like recreating that in a studio?

GGM: The sound of it is just way more fulfilling. I think just the fact that we're playing an actual bass, little things change. But on a very subtle level, though I still think people would hear it. It's just the trust you have that this is the final one. It's almost like an attitude thing at that point.

OKP: You played damn-near every instrument on Jardin. Where did that education begin?

GGM: Well, my mother was a mezzo-soprano. Played piano and cello and guitar. She sang and played for a living. That's where it all comes from I think.

OKP : So there was a lot music in the house?

GGM: Yeah, it was constantly in the house. She played a lot of the classical music. Well, she'd be rehearsing a lot of the classical music because that was kind of her gig. She was a freelancer doing a lot of church gigs at St. Patrick's or at St. John the Divine. Shit like that. There was Brazilian music playing at home, there was tango, jazz. She really wasn't playing too much pop music. Maybe a Paul Simon record. Steely Dan or something.

The farthest out it ever got in terms of like, "Woah, why is she listening to this”… There was this one time when I got home and she was listening to "Pussycat," from Under Construction. The Missy record.

OKP: Uncomfortable…but that’s a helluva record. But the home situation seems like it was a pretty dynamic primer to a whole world of music.

GGM: Yeah, it really opened up my ear I think. It gave me the flavor for all the dense harmony in pop music that I like to include.

OKP: Must have been interesting coming from such a rich musical background and then finding yourself on one of the biggest pop records of the year only a few years ago, right?

GGM: Yeah. That was hilarious.

OKP: How did the stars align that "6 8" lands on a Noah 40 production for what is maybe's Drake's best album to date?

GGM: My friend Zoe showed it to Aubrey. They were just hanging out ... She played it. She's like, "Yo, check out my boy Gabe." That's the first song on it. She just put it on repeat.He loved it.

OKP:I wonder, did that hinder the process for this record at all?

GGM: I would say, in combination with some other things that I was doing in life, it probably hindered it. It was a hard adjustment period where I was busy and moving around in a way that I hadn't before, So I felt a little disconnected from my community. Before, life was a little more innocent. Like yeah, I'll make a track, and then I'll go out and just do nothing for three days. Now it's like no, you're on the clock. Every day there's shit to do. I think that, combined with how impersonal that communication became for a minute with the whole "Jungle" thing. I was a little bummed out on a personal level. Also, I had just gotten my ass kicked by Lenny Kravitz all over Europe.

OKP: Did you like being more visible as a musician? Not everybody wants to be out there like that.

GGM: There wasn't really much to handle. I was just kind of like, "All right."

OKP: Was there a moment when all of these things crystallized and you realized you weren't trying to make another "Six Eight"?

GGM: I just wanted to make sure there was a lot of really beautiful music on this thing. At the end of the day it's all the same. Is this idea good enough? Am I going to sing it? Am I going to sing it well? I think I went hard on the outros. There's a lot of outros on this stuff.

OKP: Reminds me a of George Martin's string arrangements for The Beatles.

GGM: The strings made it wider. I guess the sonic power grew, but naturally. My whole workflow was different at that point, and my ability to whip up a little demo quickly by that point had gotten way better. I had samples.

OKP: And now you're trucking Upstate to record with analog wizards. What was it like working with Henry Hirsch?

GGM: It's great working with him. Come in with all my demos, play them for him, and he he's just like, "All right, great. What do you want to do first?."

OKP: Pretty straightforward.

GGM: He tells me what mics to throw up. Some of the digital stuff, he just really doesn't like. That's just an aspect of working with him. It's interesting. He's not very fond of my beats. He'll always ask me to redo it on actual drums. I'm like, "No, this is part of the aesthetic."

OKP: Sounds like you've grown a lot throughout this process. Is Jardin the mature record you hoped to make?

GGM: Totally. I'm really happy with it. It pretty much shows where I'm coming from with all the different angles.

OKP: How’s it feel to be with Stones Throw now?

GGM: It's a total honor. Very moving for obvious reasons, keeping such company. Some of the people who changed my life were with them. So that's incredible.

The current roster is badass. People like Karriem Riggins are total legends and idols. It wasn't my idea. I found a notebook, and right when I had finished recording Bishoune, I wrote down a list. Where do I fit? How could this thing exist in the world, and who would want to work with it? What are artists that are kind of similar? I was just trying to brainstorm, No one was calling me. No one knew I had an album. How does this shit get off the ground? What are you supposed to do? I was just at home like, fuck. I tried writing down Erykah Badu, Gilles Peterson. I wrote down Stones Throw. I was thinking, The Stepkids, J Dilla and everything. I could get on that.

OKP: So what's on the horizon?

GGM: Do some promotional solo shows. Rehearsing for this little tour. Just getting all the songs up and running live with the duo.

OKP: Who's the other piece?

GGM: David Frazier. He played drums on the record.

OKP: Recreating this record onstage seems daunting. How the hell are you gonna do that?

GGM: I into my multi track and I mute out all the things that can be played by two people. Then I print the rest of it. I take out my lead vocal, I take out the right hand keyboard part. I pick out the bass. I'm playing bass. I'm playing keyboard. I'm singing. That's enough for one person. Then, David's playing the drums. This little percussion thing that wouldn't translate, and that are mic'ed way too beautifully on the record, we keep in. So he's playing SPD drums. I'll turn down some of the background vocals a little bit sometimes, when it's too much. I can't be having a seven piece band. So that's my world.

OKP : Finally, what have you been listening to recently?

GGM: Yesterday I listened to Innervisions, the day before I listened to Fulfillingness' First Finale.

OKP : So just a lot of Stevie?

GGM: Yeah, but all of a sudden, just in the last couple of days. Also some Dilla tapes. There's always something that I'm not quite familiar with. You know, raiding someone's hard drive. How predictable for the Okayplayer interview.