TIDELANDS

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As the story goes, Gabriel Montana Leis needed to learn flugelhorn before he could play the melodies he began dreaming up in 2009. In forming Tidelands he enlisted Mie Araki, a percussionist able to play drums and Moog bass at the same time. Leis blows his horn throughout the San Francisco duo’s debut, but these tracks are built more on his guitar loops—jangling tangles that nuzzle Araki’s synths and caress the sweeping strings of collaborator Minna Choi, conductor of the Magik*Magik Orchestra. Atop this grand, romantic sound, Leis sings of God, love, war and the sea. He’s a sensitive urban adventurer on a quest for self-expression that ends in victory.