The Chicken Angel Woman with a Triangle

This was not an album I intended to make...it just kind of happened. I was in the middle of a strange period that was basically the opposite of writer's block; I had too many ideas and didn't know what to focus on. Then a few ridiculously inspiring instruments came into my life (chief among them a few funky old guitars) and I suddenly found myself working toward something fairly concrete instead of stumbling around aimlessly. Many of these songs have pretty repetitive and conventional structures that are the complete opposite of everything I've been working toward over the past several years, and there are a lot of lyrics that rhyme. But after avoiding these things for so long, it's kind of refreshing in an absurd way to dip my toes back in the water. I've also learned that the songs know what they want and need to be much better than I do, so the best thing I can do is try to stay out of the way and let them reveal themselves.

Aside from a few things that were recorded in March and April before I had figured out what to concentrate on, these songs were recorded in June and July of 2008, with the bulk of the work done during a three week period. Nothing digital was used at any point, aside from a Lexicon effects processor for a bit of reverb and the obsolete digital mixer I've been recording everything on since 1999 (when it wasn't yet obsolete). No synths, digital piano, amp simulators, or anything like that. I didn't intentionally go out of my way to avoid these things, but after a while it just felt right keeping everything as organic as possible. I brought an old snare drum out of retirement after neglecting it for five years and realized it was perfect for a lot of these songs. I reacquainted myself with the art of sticking a microphone in front of a guitar amp after crossing over to the dark side and using a POD for several years. A certain vague shared sense of purpose or something seemed to seep into most of the songs. This is mostly first-take stuff with a lot of improvisation involved, so there are mistakes all over the place, but imperfection is half of what my music is all about, and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.

I'm not sure what to call the end result, or what genre it fits into. I mixed everything rather quickly and erratically (mixing the songs as they were recorded and not bothering to tweak the initial rough mixes), and I'm sure someone else could have done a more polished job, but it is what it is, and it ain't cheese whiz. It's one of the oddest, most schizophrenic and bloated things I've done, but it also feels more like a proper, self-contained album than my CDs usually do. I'm not sure how that happened. In any case, it was the most fun I've had recording music in quite a while, and it was good to get back in touch with the feeling of operating without a safety net. Hopefully anyone who listens gets as much enjoyment out of listening to it as I did making it.

Performed/Produced/Recorded/Mixed/Mastered by JW
All songs written/improvised by the hairy guy who sang them, except:
Wait All Morning (written by Anna Atkinson)
(c) & (p) 2008, Tosteestostas Music