19th Century Songs
Over the course of the last year, I recorded a new EP called “19th Century Songs,” which I will be self-releasing. The six songs are bound together by stories of the 19th century events that inspired them. A story of the Donner Party as seen through the eyes of traveler and survivor Eliza Donner, a love letter from General William Tecumseh Sherman to his wife, and an impressionistic take on the life of Edgar Allen Poe are just three of the six tales. The song “Close Your Eyes” was written after I read “Devil in the White City,” which was so intense and visual that it was begging for a song!
Once again I worked with my old friend Mark Ospovat at Emandee Studio in Brooklyn, who I’ve known since we were young, noisy indie rock types back in the 90’s, and our bands played shows together in record stores and small local clubs in CT and NY. The recording was done throughout 2010, with Mark and I taking basic arrangements and adding instrumentation including organ, bass, guitars and buhlbuhl (the indian banjo, which in truth is not very banjo-like), and layers of vocals. The songs also feature Anders Griffen (who has played with Regina Spektor, Jeffrey Lewis, Kimya Dawson) on drums. My release date is 4/18/11, for digital and the CD package which will include multiple prints and drawings.
I’ve put up two new videos on my page of two songs from the EP, shot just this weekend by my friend musician Chris Carlone, for his Tumblr site Live at Carlone’s! (http://liveatcarlones.tumblr.com/). This is fun new project of his, featuring musicians from all over the world, coming to play a few acoustic songs in his NYC living room.