Some Words about these Songs

Art

The sounds on this record were recorded during one week of extreme focus and retrospect. We paused from our day jobs to track the majority of the album during those seven days. Green tea + St John's Wort was the diet for the afternoon, followed by whiskey and PBRs, energy drinks+cigarettes. Midnight breaks on the roof became the forum for discussion about the direction of our songs. In many ways these will always be the best music-times of my life.

With Luke in New York and myself now living in the East Bay, it's a wonder how or when it will possible for us to play these songs live. We are literally on opposite sides of the country's coastline. Maybe one day when we are older men with sons and daughters we will find ourselves behind our instruments in the same room together communicating the best way we know how, through music.

Thanks:

Jonathan Stowers, Josh Burns, Nick for loaning us preamps and mics, Alex, Wolfpack, Kokua, Tori Wiget, Travis Oberg, Bagnal, The Seabright girls and boys, My lovely wife Mo, and all of our fans, we love you all.

A very special thanks to Luke Wiget. My partner in crime and shenanigans.


Luke

Art and I took one week off of work and recorded as much as was physically possible. Some great things happened that week and I will never forget how much fun and meaningful it is to be cooped up in a studio making music with a friend. We ate a lot of chips and drank a lot of coffee and beer and whiskey. I could go on and on here about the demo-ing process and the slew of people we tried out to be in Electric Leaves and how that didn’t work at all but took a lot of time, or how the record was partially put off by touring with other bands and recording projects or that these songs started in a studio in Soquel (Pereldanra ii) and then moved across town into a small room that smelled of weed and glue and was finally finished in my apartment in Bed-Stuy (Perelandra iv). Each step was difficult but the rewards have surpassed all that. In a way I want some of details of the project to be only mine and Art’s. As he said, it really was the best.

We are different people now than we were when we made these songs. I think for the better. Some of the poison, the disappointment in myself and some of the people I’ve loved, has left me and I’m grateful. Good things, whether music or jogging or origami, should serve to redeem the rest—the jobs and the people who shit on us, the unexplainable ways that humans sometimes treat other humans. I have no idea whether this stack of songs will do anything for anyone, but it has helped me. This batch captures the process of healing not the finished product.

Art Larios is one of the purest, most honest people I’ve ever known. Thanks, A, for hanging in there with me and for always being so intensely focused on our music. Also, thanks for teaching me how to open a bottle of beer with a lighter. That has come in handy a couple of times since.

Thanks:

Toridawn, Stow, Team Seabright, Garrett Kautz, Oberg, Josh Burns, Bianca Franklin, Wolfpack, Kokua, Jeff and Alex Mountain, Nick Overhauser, PornBody, Shawn Hatjes, Kenny Hogan, Art’s VW Van, the Oklahoma Police who thought we slung crack and the shower situation at that one campground, Marcus from TX, Matt from TX, all the bands who we have been fortunate to play with. And finally, you for listening to us.