"Bearings" now available!
Hello everybody!
My new album Bearings is finally out today in all formats! I've been babbling to you about this album and release date all year, and perhaps you'll be relieved to know that it's finally here. Bearings features twelve songs about many different types of landscape, ranging from grasslands to railyards and highways to volcanoes, all written by way of an improvisation-based process that was scary to work with at first but that I ultimately found to be a pretty fun, challenging, and oddly appropriate way to write about places. Order your copy on CD or vinyl here, or download it digitally here, or stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or any other platform here.
Listen to BEARINGS on any platform
I'll be celebrating the album with performances in several of my favorite places in New England over the next month! Hope to see you at one of these. (The Boston and Portland shows are especially recommended.)
10/12 CAMBRIDGE, MA - Lilypad (tickets)
10/13 RICHMOND, VT - Richmond Congregational Church
10/18 LYME, NH - Northern Woodlands Speaker Series
10/19 COLEBROOK, NH - Tillotson Center (tickets)
10/20 + 21 - GREENVILLE, ME - AMC Medawisla Lodge
10/27 PORTLAND, ME - One Longfellow Square w/ Cold Chocolate (tickets)
11/2 SHEFFIELD, MA - Dewey Hall (tickets)
11/3 METHUEN, MA - Methuen Memorial Music Hall (tickets)
My reason for intentionally writing and recording this new album in a more fast-paced and improvisational style than I normally use was to help it reflect the real-life experience of learning a new topographic space on the fly, through movement. I've never written an entire album in quite this way before, and I'm very grateful to the people who helped me do so. In particular, I'm indebted to Dan Cardinal, whose impeccable ear, generous spirit, and wizardlike mastery of audio equipment enabled us to expand these songs from simple piano textures and melodies into three-dimensional, inhabitable soundscapes without compromising their intimacy, and to Kevin Harper, who patiently and expertly engineered the initial sessions, in which I sat at his piano for days while slowly and stutteringly feeling out the edges of this new set of songs. Thanks also to my friends Harris Paseltiner and Paul Kinsman for lending their respective instruments in all the right places, to Charlie Parr for so warmly endorsing my take on his fabulous song, to Katie Ione Craney for the use of her striking and beautiful artwork, and to NASA, the GEODES team, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, the Volland Foundation, the Tallgrass Artist Residency, the University of Maryland, and the National Parks Art Association for their remarkable support of this project.
Finally, and most of all, heartfelt thanks to all the people who continue to offer encouragement and support as my music and I make our way through the world. You've made my life into a wonderfully strange and gratifying adventure, and I'm very thankful to all of you for listening.
With lots of love,
Ben