Notes
With this album, I wanted to make something beautiful and simple. I started with a central little piece of emotional grit, which was a few orphaned songs, lurking around my studio, unable to find their way out for several years. I had a lot of faith in these pieces, but they had resisted leaving the nest, so I started with those. In the process of making the first recordings I stumbled upon some other honest impulses, and a little bit of mother of pearl began to form around the grit. For these songs, I always began minimally, with just a guitar or uke, and added as little as possible to tip the song into the place it wanted to be. In some cases, it was just me and the uke, or maybe an accordion. Here, I played the songs while singing, with no tracking at all, just me and my arrow. With others, a little more pearl was required, so I added more instruments. The diatonic accordion was key, as was a little orchestra of cigar-box wood blocks and my harmonica in the rack. Once things had set a bit, I was unbelievably lucky to be able to add the beautiful vocals of Alison Davy as well as a bit of inspired acoustic guitar by Eric Garfinkel. The result for me is a collection of songs that really feels like home. The Red Circle Line was mastered by renowned mastering engineer Alan Silverman, who has put the fine sonic finish on numerous Grammy Award winning projects. The cover art is by Brian Dewan, visual contributor to such artists as They Might Be Giants, David Byrne and Neutral Milk Hotel.
