Call it music that grows on you: Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel’s “Acoustic Garden” is perhaps the first compact disc that can give the listener a green thumb (just add water).
More Top Picks Cardiac Amyloidosis The Often Missed Diagnosis
True, CDs have unintended second uses as coasters or rear-view mirror ornaments. But with “Acoustic Garden” (Narada Music), the hope is that you’ll take the cover sheet and soak it in water–thus allowing wildflower seeds embedded in the paper to sprout.
“It depends on how warm the setting,” Rumbel says, “but it should sprout in three to four days.”
The instrumental CD–comprised mostly of piano, woodwind and acoustic guitar textures–wasn’t necessarily conceived of as a gardening aid, though it wouldn’t make bad background music for a weekend dig. As it turns out, Tingstad and Rumbel, who both live in suburban Seattle, have a fondness for growing things.
Tingstad favors tall trees such as cedars, firs, sequoias and spruces (he lives on land once owned by a professional forester). Rumbel, on the other hand, cultivates kale, broccoli, Swiss chard, strawberries, raspberries and herbs in her home plot.
Once they determined the theme of the album, Tingstad and Rumbel brainstormed with Narada art director Connie Gage, who suggested the seed-in-the-jacket idea. “She gardens too,” Rumbel says.
To hear Tingstad and Rumbel tell it, making music and tending the soil reap equally coveted fruits. “I get irritable if I don’t practice my instrument, but I also get irritable if I don’t get time in the dirt,” Rumbel says. “It’s a constant tending of both things, keeping both disciplines in shape.”