Our second record turns three today. We didn’t know it at the time, but we released it several weeks before COVID would break out and change everything forever. I’m still proud of the record, still thrilled when people reach out with small gratitudes about its place in their life. Here’s our plan for 2023

We will release our third record in Spring 2024.

Yesterday, I received our third record first master via email. This is what it looks like. I explain the record this way.

Several years ago, my dad pulled over to help move some tree limbs out of traffic after a storm. While dragging it, a limb snapped and threw him to the ground. His head hit pavement, and he spent nine days in the ICU with a severe brain injury. He pulled through with minimal long term damage, minus his sense of smell and memory between stepping out of the car and waking up at the hospital. The record walks through my family’s experience of that week and a half, held together with interview clips from my father at the center of it all. It’s been beautifully embellished by Dan Seibert’s expanded arrangements for piano, clarinet, bass clarinet, vibraphone, and violin — played by Columbus’ own chamber outfit, Knisley.

If you know a small label that is curious about the record, send them our way. We’d love to get it to as many ears as possible.

We will release new songs throughout this year.

You will hear between 5-10 new songs this year; they are not on the upcoming record. We are recording them and releasing them quickly to celebrate the sheer joy of making things with friends that nobody asked us to make. If you followed our “song-a-day” activity on instagram, you will recognize many of them. We will be recording these at home, trying new strategies, learning how to mix, and keeping the stakes low. I am particularly excited to spend some time learning how to mix and arrange, make short videos, and dig deeper into songs that don’t take themselves too seriously.

We will play shows out of town.

We aim to spend about 4-6 weekends out of town playing shows. I’ll be reaching out later more directly about this, but I’d love to play in houses, basements, living rooms, and backyards for people who have taken a liking to the music (looking at you - NYC, Philly, Toledo, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Indy, Dayton, Louisville, Cincy, Chicago, Bloomington, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, others). If that’s you, reach out at the contact form at our website — we will come to where the people are.

I will write weekly at the blog.

I still think that spending too much time on social media is particularly damaging to me, but I think that I can start to approach it on my own terms. I don’t think my approach is terribly optimized to be particularly algorithmically engaging, but I don’t think I really want my life to be about being particularly algorithmically engaging. I’d like to grow as a songwriter, as a photographer, as a videographer, as a reader, as a writer, and as a person. I think that our plan for 2023 will allow us to do that.

Here’s to deciding how to grow and not losing yourself in the process. Wishing you all the best.

sam

(also, listen to Angela Perley’s new album — because you owe it to yourself.)