Torch Bearer Number Three

Welcome to the Torch Bearer Number Three, the third blog based on the album Torch Bearer #3, to be recorded at Stoney Lonesome Farm very soon!

The vision for three blogs on Torch Bearer #3 was inspired by a feeling of lightness and creativity around the album creation process, what an album is or can be, and how blogs can be an effective means to enhance the album experience.

Some of my favorite recordings to listen to are rehearsals, complete with the hiss of a simple cassette machine, or a live recording of a performance that includes phrases of conversation in the crowd- what many might call "bad recordings" I tend to love, if I like the music. Rehearsal tapes and rough live recordings are meaningful to me precisely because they are rough and unpolished.

This sense in turn inspires my approach to recording an album. Which is better- the more perfect studio sound or the real feel of a living room studio, with creaking chairs, and a living atmosphere? Each has a role to play, with benefits and challenges to each, but I come back to what I enjoy listening to- music with a place and a context, just like the local food we grow, music with a feeling of warmth.

My blogs are a means to enhancing the warmth around the music, to embellish what will already be a rough-sawn, homemade, farm product with material that can be accessed from anywhere.

Warmth. Three blogs on the same album, it's about warmth. It's about being creative, about weaving through and around the sounds on an album. An album must speak for itself and stand on it's own, but the adventure can certainly be enriched with a few postcards, a weathered journal, an atmosphere that helps to dissolve any distances between musician and audience.

Welcome to the Stoney Lonesome Sound, and the second of a four album series, Torch Bearer #3.

Strength,

Farmer Pablo