E' invece completamente strumentale il nuovo album di David Garland, Flowering Flows, che si basa ancora una volta sulle vibrazioni, le sonorità e le risonanze generate da piccoli e gentili gesti compiuti sul corpo di una speciale chitarra a dodici corde creata dal figlio, Kenji Garland, captate nel loro imprevedibile flusso da microfoni ambientali collocati nelle stanze di casa.
“The String Flows are the result of going to an extreme and primarily letting the guitar speak for itself - dice Garland - my role is to tune it (generally open tunings with each of the 12 strings on a different pitch, instead of in pairs), and then to be an attentive facilitator with my ears, mind, and hands. And my hands are usually not on the strings plucking and fretting as would be normal, but instead I touch, hold, and caress the body of guitar to elicit changes in harmonics, and to dampen or emphasize certain strings and tonalities. In the recording the guitar is layered through multi-tracking. The guitar is battery powered, but it is an acoustic instrument. Like a violin or piano the sound is manifested in vibrating wood and wire, and must be recorded with microphones. These real-world vibrations are important to me in principle, as someone who prefers to work with acoustic rather than digitally produced sound, and they are essential to the throbbing interaction of the strings which is the soul of this music.”