Each of these songs began with a movement on vibraphone, sometime later they were evaluated by mood and rhythm and eventually grew more curious each time I listened. I wanted to give them greater attention in hopes to try and realize their atmospheres with more clarity. Once they were sequenced I sent them to my good friend Jeffrey Niemeier to record violin. We’ve played music together before and I always trust his heart and whatever he hears, so I had no doubt that if he chose to record on any of the songs then at least those were the ones that would be worth continuing to work on. When I got them all back and heard where his sensibilities came in, my excitement for these songs blossomed into a more whole awareness.

After dialing in the violin I reached out to our friend Ty Maxon to see if tracking guitar or banjo appealed. I’m always grounded by Ty’s guitar playing and his own music, meticulously thoughtful and prismatically lived-in. After recording a couple albums with Ty (windfurrow and brambles) and one with Jeffrey (ode), I had been wanting to pair the vibraphone, violin, and guitar. When I got the songs back from Ty, it was awesome hearing the guitar come in on different songs, some with gentle effects and others featuring banjo or the dulcimer; each one having its own space to flourish but flowing together, lending a kind of solar-perspective to the entire thing.

Mixing the various parts together while combining field recordings from a marsh near my house, and then really just listening to them over and over again in different settings with my wife, from an old hotel room in the Catskills to our lovely Beechwood garden and greenhouse at home in Grand Rapids, has been an enjoyable experience. Finding where the songs wanted to be and following them… creating a kind of map, a new geography with a path among friends.