April 6, 2009

New FERNWOOD Record Out Soon!

Gayle and I have recorded 15 new FERNWOOD tunes. We are now in the mixing process with our friend and co-producer Wayne Yentis, who has all the fancy equipment to subtly polish our sound 'til it shines! He helps us so much and yet his touch is so smooth that you don't even realize he's been all over the tracks.

 I get a little anxious at this point because I can't wait to hear the finished new record!  But, we are committed to making each FERNWOOD album as good as we possibly can, and so, we are taking our time and fine tuning every sound in every tune. We also add new tracks at Wayne's. Then, we have to throw out the tunes that don't work with the entire collection. This can be quite difficult because we get attached to the little buggers. Nevertheless, we are going to have to throw out some good ones (that may be available at some later time). We are after a collection of tunes that works as a complete piece of art.

On this new album we have added some new instruments that were not heard on our first record, Almeria. Gayle has added a new and fancy Greek bouzouki, the dilruba, jal tarang, and swarmandal to the new record. And, my new instruments are tenor banjo, and fiddle. We continue to use all of our other instruments as on the first record.

It looks like it still may take another month or two to completely finish it. We think we like this record even more than our first one, and we hope that you will too!

Todd,
Malibu, California