HAPPY SEPTEMBER FROM NH!

It's starting to cool off here (finally) after a long warm summer. I just adore this part of the year as the leaves start to turn and jeans and sweatshirts make sense again. I've been working non-stop on new projects, but there are three new albums that have just come out that I want to bring to your attention. Let's go!

Home is the new album from Will Ackerman. 

Will defined a genre of spacious Americana-leaning instrumental music with his Windham Hill label, and this year is the 50th anniversary of the very first Windham Hill release, Will's The Search for the Turtle's Navel. 

Home is a collection of songs about the life he has created in Vermont where he has been living since the early 90s. He still doesn't want to tolerate a full New England winter (a California boy at heart, still), but the richness of the life he's created there comes through in the music on this album. 

I've been working with Will since 2010 or so, and we've produced dozens (I think close to a hundred) of albums for people from all over the place... but when I get to turn my attention to making records of Will's own music something special happens because of the love and respect I have for him as a musician and human. I'm so proud of what we made on this album and I hope you're able to find time to listen. CDs will be available later this month.

John Diliberto from Echoes told me it's Will's “most ambient ever." Whoever could be to blame for that?

Streaming links are here.

Ken Bonfield's new album Gratitude is done! It's been such a pleasure to make this record from start to finish here with Ken. 

Ken is a phenomenal guitarist and we have worked together for somewhere around 20 years, but I've never produced an album for him until now and we just love the way it turned out. 

We asked some very talented friends to join us: Vin Downes (second guitars), Michael Manring (fretless bass), Charlie Bisharat (violins), Jeff Oster (flugelhorn), Mike Rivard (double bass), and Kim Deschamps (pedal steel). It's a beautiful album, and the first two singles are out now!

Listen here.

(side note: I heard the pedal steel in my head before we had a player and when I went in search of the right person to do the parts Kim Deschamps seemed like the only option. He played the beautiful ambient steel parts on the Danna/Clement North of Niagara  album (a favorite of mine) AND he plays the gorgeous steel on the Cowboy Junkies albums that straddled country and Americana so well. I'm so thrilled he was able to join us on this album. The results speak for themselves!)

My new album oto is now available. 

It's one of the strangest albums I've ever made as I can't identify what the genesis was or how it became what it is. It took on a life of its own as it arrived and by the time it told me it was done it felt more like a soundtrack to a video game than a typical "me" album. I can't really explain it.

There's no piano. There's no lap steel. There's no electric bass. It's definitely ambient, but channeled through some memories of sweeping 80s Japanese electronic music like what Kitaro made, and at times it becomes very rhythm propelled. There's even a "fun" song on the album ("masquerade") which reminds me of the little cheesy pieces that would show up on the early Jean-Michel Jarre albums. 

It's the first album I've ever made that actually amuses me, partly because I simply don't understand why it is what it is. It arrived in a flurry and feels more like it was already a thing rather than a result of a series of choices made by the "artiste." (As I was mastering it recently I found myself wondering how the heck I made some of the sounds. I'm such a deliberate music maker that this kind of thing pretty much never happens.)

Anyway, I hope you have a chance to check it out and take a trip into the land of oto with me. Listen here.

and (shhh…) the QUIET SKY SERIES

Since April I've been releasing shorter ambient pieces every month on the 20th, and at this point the first five of these quiet skies are out in the world. If you're in need of a quick break and a deep breath, please check them out anywhere you listen to music. Streaming links are here.

In the control room this morning… seems it's slowly turning more red than black!

This is newsletter number thirty-eight (?) of 415 or so (depending on the actuarial table you consult), and I am very, truly grateful to you for tuning in to the words here, to my music, and to the music I help shepherd into the world.

You can find records I worked on on all the streaming services. Currently Bandcamp remains the best spot to find all my music, though as mentioned above I've finally built a store on my website and a page with links to stream my music from all the usual places.

THANK YOU, as always, for listening to music that enters the world via my studio... it really means so much to me!

Please feel free to share the newsletter and music with friends you think would like it, and stay in touch!

More to come soon,

Tom

PS... I'm also on Tiktok now! Seriously. It's sort of fun.