Frail and haunting, beautiful and dreamy, the music of composer team Todd Montgomery and Gayle Ellet has a unique, yet familiar feel. Both of them have been composing and performing music professionally, for over thirty years each. Working under the name "Fernwood", their cinematic music blends the beautiful sounds of Greek & Irish bouzouki, sitar, acoustic guitar, Chinese ruan, Turkish cumbus, Moroccan oud, mandolin, harmonium, gimbri, rababah, up-right bass and rhodes piano.
ALL MUSIC PLAYED BY HAND, on INSTRUMENTS MADE OUT OF WOOD!
ABOUT THE MUSIC:
Todd Montgomery and Gayle Ellett are currently exploring new areas of folk-psyche music. Contemporary yet Traditional, their music has a strong pan-cultural feel. By combining elements of Pastoral Acoustic Psychedelic music, with the sounds of Traditional American, Irish, Eastern European, Asian, and Middle Eastern music, they have created a hybrid style that is uniquely their own. Performed on Greek and Irish bouzouki, sitar, acoustic guitar, Chinese ruan, Turkish cumbus, Moroccan oud, mandolin, harmonium, gimbri, rababah, up-right bass and Rhodes piano, their music has a strong autobiographical feel that accurately portrays a sense of who they are and where they live. Recorded in their Malibu studio, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, their music is a reflection of their lives in Southern California as well as the previous work they've done in the areas of Film and TV composition, Traditional World music, Rock and Jazz.
Belgium's famous PSYCHEDELICFOLK.com said "Fernwood is a musical entity of two musicians who feel each other’s essence for such cooperation well. This acoustic cooperation is rather descriptive in a very moody way, with pickings and notes in different rhythmical speeds, spinning around, with some lovely tunes. The listing in my ‘acidfolk’ section does not completely do justice to the release. Especially young people often tend to look for something with a hype factor, with "weird" or strange or modern associations, while the mature composer also recognises better things that last longer, or that reflect harmonic balances. For record companies, harmonic results are also harder to sell or categorise, when the music does not follow any of the mainstream tendencies. Fernwood's music reflects harmonic pulses and melodies, arranged by the inspirations of a duo playing together with interactions and melted ideas of compositions, and a whole diversity of instruments.
Recommended!"
Their music has been described in JazzMando.com as "A tantalizing taste of otherworldly aural delight." Check it out for yourself!
Currently, they are working with numerous film directors from:
Holland, India, Brazil, UAE, Finland, South Africa, Thailand, Australia, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, New Zealand, Italy, France, Belize, Indonesia, Cuba, and Mexico.
For more information on these two composers, please go to the links below.
Gayle Ellett: www.myspace.com/djamkaret
TJ Montgomery: www.myspace.com/tjmontgomery
Or, just find them in the "Friends" section below...
BIOGRAPHY:
TODD MONTGOMERY began experimenting with string instruments in the fourth grade. Since then he has enjoyed learning to play such instruments as Irish bouzouki, sitar, mandolin and guitar. He spent his teen years in psychedelic rock bands until he discovered the folk music of America and Ireland. In search of deeper improvisation in an established tradition, he studied the sitar for 3 years with a real sitar master, Harihar Rao, who is Ravi Shankar's oldest student. He performed on Irish bouzouki and mandolin for the movie, Chasing the Dragon, The Veronica Guerin Story. When he's not playing music or playing with his wife and son, Todd can often be found surfing the waves off Malibu.
GAYLE ELLETT has been composing and producing music for over 35 years, and has performed on over 40 CDs. He has written music for numerous Film projects and TV shows, commercials, animations, and music libraries. One of his main music groups, Djam Karet, currently has 16 CDs released so far, and has received great reviews and awards in hundreds of magazines world-wide, including Rolling Stone Magazine's "Number 2 BEST Independent Album Of The Year" and Billboard Magazine's "Critic's Choice Award". Currently, you can hear his traditional Japanese Koto music on MTV, thoughout the world. When he's not busy working in the studio, Ellett can often be found flying his hang glider 5,000 meters high over the mountains of Southern California and Northern Mexico. You can find more information about him at: www.virb.com/GayleEllett
