Danny Paul Grody

Three Lobed

The bones of a bird, stripped of flesh and feather, give no sign of the heights and depths a living bird can reach, the lengths it can travel, or the songs it can sing. The same is true of the bones of the human hand. For all their strength and delicacy, seeing them skeletal and stark obscures our knowledge of the rhythmic energy with which they engage space, the burdens they can bear, the music they can produce. Yet, in both bird and hand, the foundation of grace and motion remain. Music above all else proves this to be true. To experience a guitarist playing is to experience the hand taking flight.

This flight is the essence of all Danny Paul Grody’s work. His compositions seem to be the sonic tracings of migrations patterns. They grant us that avian instinct to simply take to air and trust our innate knowledge of the route.

Arc of Day is Grody’s first collection of new music since Furniture Music II in 2021 and his first album with Three Lobed since 2013’s Between Two Worlds. Born of explorations with Rich Douthit on drums & percussion, the album charts a path from grief and isolation to re-emergence, picking up Trevor Montgomery on bass, Chuck Johnson on pedal steel, and Jonathan Sielaff on clarinet along the way. Arc of Day not only encapsulates the journey from bone to flesh and feather, it renews the listener like birdsong in Spring after the long Winter silence.

Donal Mosher, 2023

Album Credits

Danny Paul Grody — Acoustic 12–string guitar (A1, A3–A4), Acoustic 6-string guitar (A2, B1), Electric 6–string & 12–string guitar (B2), Field recordings (A3 & B1)
Rich Douthit — Drums & percussion (A2–B2)
Trevor Montgomery — Electric bass (A2–A4)
Jonathan Sielaff — Clarinet & bass clarinet (A2–A3, B1)
Chuck Johnson — Pedal Steel (A4)

Recorded April 2022 at Brothers Chinese in Oakland, California by Jay and Ian Pellicci
Mixed August 2022 at Brothers Chinese by Jay Pellicci
‘Daybreak’ recorded and mixed September 2022 by Danny Paul Grody at home in San Francisco, California
Mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering September 2022
Artwork by Billy Joe Miller
Layout & Design by D.Norsen