An album embracing the inevitable pain of love and death as inspiration for life.

10 MP3 Songs in this album (46:18) !
Related styles: FOLK: Folk-Rock, ROCK: Acoustic

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Details:
In the Fall of 2007, I was sitting in Central Park listening to a newly purchased Cloud Cult album watching a happy father teach an even happier son how to walk. It was the first time I realized the life-altering implications of what I then thought to be just another game of childhood. I immediately thought of my own parents and their parents before them; of my brother starting his own family with a marriage soon; of my dear friends Taylor and Claire Roberts and how they would soon be the teachers in the very same game. And I couldn't help but write "Learning to Walk", a poem that would end up being the first written work of my new release, 'duende'.
I had been writing a lot about my new life in a journal my best friends had gifted to me upon my move to the Big Apple. Mostly about the daily adventures of training to be a Blue Man, but also of outings with friends, episodes with new acquaintances, reunions with old ones. But it wasn't until my move to Boston that I found my muse-or duende, rather.
In late March 2008, "settled" into a new apartment but more restless than ever, I decided to record an album. I had so much going on in my head musically, lyrically...but mostly, I missed making music with my friends. I took a week off to go back to my home state of North Carolina, first to Raleigh where Taylor, Claire, and newly-born Tavener Roberts were waiting. It was one of the best times of my life. Yes, I began recording my album, but the time with old friends and their new lives rejuvenated every part of me. I do not doubt that it was this energy from close ones that fueled the production of 'duende' from start to finish. We began recording those last days of April in Taylor's home studio, finishing most of the acoustic guitar tracking, while also hosting the incredible one-take-wonder, Leon Godwin, on a few tracks. It was a great beginning, and I left for my hometown of Asheville refreshed and ready to spend some downtime with family, a skeleton of an album in tow.
Back in Boston, I holed myself up in my tiny studio apartment for the month of May and composed the majority of the album's layers. I knew I wanted to add piano, organ, and plenty of strings to these songs, but minimally, to support the concept of "the space between notes" mentioned in other artists' perceptions of the duende concept. And I had one person in mind for the strings: Mark Nippert. As I said before, duende was somewhat of an excuse to get my old band 'glorydive' back together in the studio...and come early June, that's exactly what happened.
Inspiration from love and loss flooded sub.urban studios on those nine days of tracking. Everything I had felt in writing any part of the music or words came back full force. "Wings Over Water" was played and sung in one take--the first time I ever played the song for Taylor, and by far the most emotional part of the recording. Other songs like "A Crazy Place for a Muse" and "Borrowing the Bear" took shapes I had not planned, but gladly accepted. Friends from different eras of my life, now scattered all over the state, re-convened to provide me with what I now think of as the soul of the record in the final minutes of "Everything I Know". There was good beer, even better food, and a perfect balance of laughing and crying during takes. And glorydive finally got the chance to sit around, eat goldfish, and make music again. It was a beautiful nine days.
'duende' began as an album about love and death and the inevitability of the pain of both. But I learned, while recording in a house full of friends and new life, the album is really only a testament to one simple theme:

Heart.