Arch Cape

The vinyl edition of this Series 33 release has sold out (thank you!), to keep the unique vibes going we now have a batch of amazingly lovely one of a kind water colors from Rachel that come with a download of the album.

Rachel has this to say about them: "I wanted to find a good way to present the digital edition of my new record that felt like more than just getting a card with some type. I have been making these small watercolors, and decided to package them together. If you choose this option, you'll receive one of my original watercolors (they are all around 4" x 5" or so, but vary in size somewhat), signed and dated, packaged with a sturdy piece of backing board, slipped into a clear sleeve. The backing board has the download code and information, so it essentially is "the record". I mail USPS priority and your artwork and music will arrive safely tucked into a sturdy envelope."

And here's the story about the music:
this record has been a long time in the making. it has traveled through time and space to land in this time and this place in this form.

eleven years ago i was on tour playing drums with m.ward, when i started writing songs with my computer on the tour bus and in hotels to pass the time, and to do something productive. when I returned home i started recording songs in my basement and realized the way i wrote best was as part of the recording process. i realized that i write much the same way that i paint, layer by layer, bit by bit, adding and reducing until the final form emerges.

i wrote pop songs back then. new wave dance hits i called them. eventually i put together a band of dear friends. we played the songs live. i called us arch cape after the very small town (one church, one post office, one general store) on the oregon coast where my family owns a cabin and where i spent a good part of my childhood. arch cape version number 1 never did make a proper record, and then i decided to form a different version of arch cape, one with a focus on percussion and vocals and keys, and that version played many more shows in portland, oregon, but we never recorded.

i moved to providence, rhode island in 2012, and not long after i moved, i started trying my hand at playing my songs solo with a looping pedal. i did a short east coast tour with my dear friend and beautiful cellist lori goldston, but my music still didn’t feel settled for me, and i felt like i was searching for a settled form. and still no record, even though i had been promising folks that i would make one. it is easy to start things, and record a million beginnings, and so much harder to finish them. one day i had the idea to improvise to my stop motion films for a show. i had been booked to open for a fellow solo percussionist and wanted to focus on playing free form rather than songs, and i finally realized that the un-settled was where i preferred to dwell.

these songs are not the only form of the songs that exist, and indeed you might come to a live show and not hear many of these at all, for at each show, the music changes form. i keep trying to pin the songs down but they don’t really want to be pinned down. these songs are influenced by water, which is always moving, always changing. I now live near the coast again, though one on the other side of the country, in a small town called portsmouth, in an even smaller community called island park. i walk on the beach every morning and observe that the water is always a different color and texture. and that is also this music.