Album Notes

The songs on Three Rooms are looking outward at the lives of people around me, situations, states of mind. In my older songs, I preferred stripped-down arrangements, percussive guitar parts, wide-ranging melodies. These new songs build on that style, fleshing out the arrangements with overdubbed vocals, invented and discovered sounds, traditional instruments in various combinations. There's a lot of detailed work in the recordings, but the overall tendency, like the structure of the songs, remains simple: to create a natural environment for each moment of music. Songs are incantations: Done right, they create a wild and beautiful magic, unleashing powers you didn't think were present. These arrangements and recordings are my rituals, designed to draw out those dangerous spirits.

Individual songs shouldn't require explanation, so I'm not going to offer any. They either work for you or they don't. My hope is the music and the images in the lyrics will resonate with you somehow, in a place beyond explanations. Then they become something that we share.

Many thanks to Dane Scalise for constant support during this project and to Mark Kalinowski and Mike Tarsia for help with the final mastering.

As a composer, I also have a large body of work for choir, orchestra, chamber ensembles and solo instruments. Some of that music is published by Calabrese Brothers Music and is available online.