About
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There Is Another World arose out of a hard winter. I was living in an empty house in a small town in Wisconsin, walking in the woods every day, largely unplugged from the internet, reading poetry and making strong coffee in an empty kitchen. By day, I walked in the frozen wetlands, I walked through the old oak savannah, I walked along the rock river. At night, the songs poured out of me.
I brought them to Eugene, Oregon, and laid them all to tape in a couple fevered days. I remember writing up until the night before the session. And then Todd Sickafoose and his cast of avant-garde heavies came in and painted all the shades and colors. It's the most striking soundscape my songs have ever had the privilege to receive: breaths and rasps and clangs and low chimes from clarinets and wineglasses and prepared piano, sobs and sighs and soaring color from pedal steel and violin. It's beautiful. That part is so beautiful.
This record feels like winter, it feels like clarity, it feels like the nakedness of raw experience. And the shape it took, I owe entirely to Todd. There are thirteen songs on the record, and there are also six fully-realized tracks that we put on an EP called "Bird of Prey".
I was delighted to work again with Amy Ruppel, my old friend and a wonderful painter. You can find her work on many of my records over the years, and with her painting of a fox in winter for the cover of this record, she summed up a thousand words.
I'm fiercely proud of the art we made, and I want to take it out to the people, to do the thing I've always done, to sing these songs for people, who bring their ears and attention, who bring their hearts breaking and mending, to the rooms I have the privilege of playing. I'm truly lucky to have you as an audience, to support me on this grand fool's errand.
Risks and challenges
The challenge is always the same: how to tread water, hopefully slightly forward, in the ever-lovin' Marketplace of Ideas. Songs, poems, art, beauty: these things are ephemeral and elusive.. and, frankly, un-buyable and un-sellable. And yet I'm glad to make a living, and glad to pay the artists who were a part of the making of this record, the fine musicians, the painters, the graphic designers, the manufacturers, the audio engineers. And, as well, the crew that keeps me on the road: my agent and manager and publicists. I spent tens of thousands of dollars paying these people for their excellent work. I'm glad to do it, and grateful for you, my audience. I've been so lucky, to have all of these wonderful people in my corner, and to have just enough of an audience to keep body and soul together and pay everyone. We do it for love. Help us keep doing it. Thank you.
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