You Must Change Your Life -- Coming May 5
We are beyond excited to announce that our new record is coming out May 5 on Nine Mile Records. The first single is out now (LISTEN HERE). And you can pre-order your copy of the album, along with a whole slew of snazzy new merch. It’s hard to convey how deeply meaningful this record is to us. In an attempt to do so, David wrote up a longer piece about the making of the record and the magical experience of recording it.
In the sweltering heat of Virginia in mid August, we dropped off producer Dan Molad at the Richmond airport and were driving home to Charlottesville, where our two kids were waiting. It was an uneventful drive home, but we felt giddy. We had just finished recording the bulk of the new album and had that tingling sense of disbelief that follows unbelievably fortunate moments in a life. Although I’m wary of how dramatic this might sound, my partner Suz turned to me and said aloud that if we died in a car crash during the drive home it would be okay. As shocking as that statement was, admittedly, I had to agree. We had just finished the record, the one you dream about when you first fall in love with music and imagine a future where you could one day get to make an album like this – a whole sonic world that is sensual and textured, deeply grooved and fully fleshed out, encompassing the emotional gamut of a life.
This record is our mission statement. It is a super-danceable amalgamation of American and Mexican music that seamlessly weaves together the warm, earthy folk instruments and rhythms at the heart of this band and pushes to the outer edges of sonic adventurousness, while maintaining a pop veneer, sensibility and accessibility. We ran the hand-carved Mexican folk instruments (the jaranas and huapanguera), plus Suz’s fiddle, an out-of-tune marimba, and the bass clarinet, through the wildest-sounding filters and pedals, pitch-shifted horn sections several octaves to create other-worldly soundscapes, and layered the grooves of a slamming rock band with drum machines and loops. We made bold moves – heaping synths upon synths, encouraging our electric guitarist to let loose, running vocals through fuzzed-out amps pumped into other rooms – but the beating heart of the band, the humanness and frailty of real voices and emotions never got lost in the process.
It’s our missive of love to all those who have inspired us and the heroes that we’re toured with – Los Lobos and Buena Vista Social Club. And it’s our letter to the future, showing how the lines blur and dissolve between musical cultures and eras. In doing so, we managed to pack in everything we love about music: the pure joy of it, the swagger and exhilaration of the British Invasion, the 6/8 syncopation and sway of the Mexican fandango, the belting piano rockers of the 70’s from Elton John and the sly ones from Harry Nilsson, paired with the experimentation of Fleetwood Mac and moody balladry of Nick Drake.
And the songs. Oh, the songs. The best ones this band has ever made.
At the heart of all these songs is desire—taming it, grappling with it, coaxing it, reminiscing on it, allowing it to upend one’s life, being swept down to Mexico by it, trying to be patient with it. I sought to make a record that would be the sonic equivalent of a cubist painting of Eros – passionate and physical desire in all its forms and across the timeline of a heart from first love (“Hey Annie”) through fantasy (“Best Lover”) and all the stages of regret until finally arriving to “Luanne” (“I could walk away from everything / but I could never walk from you”). “Luanne” is the apex of love, the single, the jaunty, radio-friendly, feel-good song with the rapid fire lyrics and the hooky chorus, the song that will be the climax of the energetic live shows that have sustained this band for 16 years and counting.
The recording session could have been a disaster. Several flights were missed, and the engineer / studio owner came down with hand, foot, & mouth disease and was out for the first half of the session. But the precariousness of it led us to savor the startling beauty and kismet of the sessions all the more. With no producer or drummer around on the first day, I started playing the band a brand new ballad I was still writing – “Go Break Some Hearts.” I hadn’t imagined it fitting with the other upbeat songs in the batch, but it instantly became our personal favorite and when we shifted the key and tempo to fit Suz’s voice, it felt like an instant classic with her at the helm. In another moment of serendipity, we found out that one of our favorite musicians Twain (Mat Davidson) who we’ve known since our early Boston days in 2007 had moved next door. We sent him a text to come over and after some prodding he agreed to sit down at the piano to join us for “Your Heart’s a Pinata,” a song he had never heard and that we captured in one live full-band take with the rain softly pouring down on the metal roof of the studio.
As we've been working on this record over the course of many years now, it's had several names. The Secret Record. The Magic Record. The One. Now that the record will finally see the light of day, we'll call it by its proper name. You Must Change Your Life.