Writing about music, it has been famously noted, is like dancing about architecture. Well, I think I'd much rather do a fucking jig about the Flatiron building than write about the songs I've written. That said, good help is hard to find (and expensive to boot) and since my understanding of the songs changes from minute to minute, I'd hate to hand the job over to some other poor hack. So, here goes:

The songs on the new record were born one stoney night on a frozen lake in the Northeast Kingdom (located in, surprise, the Northeastern corner of Vermont). As the lake creaked and groaned under it's own weight (an unsettling sound), I started to receive the staticky seeds of these songs. Now, I'm all for conversations concerning spiritual mumbo jumbo and chemical interactions, but that's a whole other discussion better suited for another time. I will however recommend reading Written in my Soul, a collection of interviews with songwriters, by Bill Flanagan, specifically, the interviews with Keith Richards and Pete Townshend. I find myself more in Keef's camp of considering the songwriter to be a conduit, or receiver, for what seems to be floating around in the ether. Townsend contends that songs are born more of the person, experience and hard work. Of course, nothing is so cut and dried, but I think the best songs seem to just kind of appear. Not that there isn't work involved, but the interesting ones tend to just show up on your doorstep unannounced. It's your job to clean them up (or throw dirt on them) and send them out into the world. Or lock them in the basement. But, I digress... I managed to get back to shelter where I thawed out the lyrics to the song that became "Difference." That set the wobbly wheels in motion. The next day I dragged my old multi-track into an ice shack and continued recording what would eventually become Songs in a Northern Key.

What was started in the godforsaken frozen north was completed over the course of a swollen year in various donated and abandoned spaces. Due to the remote locations (VT, upstate NY, and NYC) and the odd hours of recording, I ended up playing most of the instruments myself. I did manage to get regular Varnaline players Jud Ehrbar (drums, synthesizer, vocals. See also: Reservoir, Space Needle) and John Parker (electric and acoustic bass, pump organ) to play on a few things. Other like-minded rockers lent their talents: Dean Jones (trombone, piano, vibes, pump organ) came by, so did Kendall Meade (of the most excellent Mascott. Check out her record Follow the Sound. She sang with me on a couple of these tracks). They all did a bang-up job.

Steve Earle, the original hillbilly philosopher poet, has been threatening to put out Varnaline records on his E-Squared label for a short while. I first met him a few years ago in Texas. We were both playing an afternoon gig at Lollapalooza (yup) and I sat with Steve in his bus before he played and assured him that the yahoo masses would dig his show. I think he managed to avoid most of the dirt clods and plastic bottles that were heaved at him by the shitheads who were waiting for Soundgarden, Ramones, Metallica, et al. Despite that, and the usual music business odds, things actually worked out for the two of us that day. Fast forward to late 2000 and I'm spending a couple of weeks down in Nashville mixing this strangely conceived record with Ray Kennedy, the other half (along with Steve) of the twangtrust, who've produced Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and Steve's Transcendental Blues and many others. I returned to the frozen south in early 2001, while Steve was around, to sit on the couch, talk about the Beatles, re-mix a couple of tracks and finish Songs in a Northern Key.

These are songs about the weather, fish, telephones, cities, underwater caves, broken glass, insomnia, computers, moving, decaying wishes and aluminum dreams; although many might not see those things. All four seasons are in there, too. Trying to write about these songs is like trying to see in a half moon night - you sometimes have to look at them from the corner of your eye to get an idea of what you're looking at. Good Jenne wrote this about the record, and I like what she has to say:

So it follows that this record is a collection of the black and white, the broken and fixed, the banging, the blustering, the traveling, and the paternal. "Still Dream" sounds like Brian Wilson's "In My Room" if Tom Waits wrote it and the room was an underwater cave. "Song" is an ode to those tunes that lodge themselves in your DNA. "Blackbird Fields" sounds like what a bird's skeleton looks like and the apocalypse is now on "Let it all Come Down". After years on the road, Anders has honed his eye. He can measure weight on sight. He knows what he wants to keep, and what can be passed by. Of course, one man's junk is another man's treasure. And some men have a lot of junk.

Thanks for listening.

Take care,
Anders