guitarist beach babies at the mermaid parade

Alright. Making lists is dangerous and I’m about to make two. This is the first post in a non-hierarchical 10-day countdown to the launch of the EP, and to the first date of our tour, expressing my immeasurable gratitude to the many folk who’ve contributed directly to realization of the music that’s happening on Paper Birds and/or to the the physical object that is the CD itself. The names are weblinks, so go see/hear what these folks are doing out there in the world wide web.

❤ the music makers

a non-exhaustive list of incredibly creative and wonderful people who’ve contributed to this music becoming what it is. 

Alex Samaras & Scott Colberg: are on the EP. You’ll hear more about them soon.

Keisuke Matsuno & Yasuno Katsuki: the original incarnation of Paper Birds Trio, playing settings of Johanna Skibsrud poems, who brought incredible patience to a very long rehearsal where the charts were hand-written in what little hand-using I had at the time (with my nerve injury). They made so much music out of that and gave me a lot of joy in creating new music at a moment when I wasn’t physically able to do a ton of that. 

Mariel Berger: curated that first Paper Birds concert, and encouraged me to do something “experimental.” I don’t know that I succeeded there, but I did go through a different composition process and think differently and communicate differently to the musicians than I usually would. That’s thanks to her words and the environment she cultivates at her very special house concerts.

Matthew Fong: bassist extraordinaire who has put loads of time and energy into realizing the music and performing it beautifully in Toronto.

Nico Dann: my neighbour in two cities, who’s offered his drumming prowess and coffee and psychoanalysis too many times to count.

Dustin Carlson: guitar star, who’s enthusiastically diving into the new music, and about to spend way too many hours in a car with me.

Simeon Abbott & Aurora Cowie: aka BonBon Fire, my first vocalizing strange instrumented indiejazz trio, who gave me the idea that it was possible to have this much fun making music, and for whom I originally wrote the piece “Prettier.”

Don Scott, Karen Ng,  Jessica Ackerley, Dan Fortin, Nick Fraser, Jon Challoner, Ethan Ardelli, Tommy Crane, Joe Hertenstein, Allison Au, Rebecca Hennessy, Michael Herring, and a lot more people who’ve played one arrangement or another of this music, tugging it many fruitful directions.

t h a n k s  t o  y o u  a l l,  a  l o t. a lot.