Two New Albums
In March 2019, my producer James DePrato and I returned to the studio with dreams of drum machines and synthesizers. Armed with telecasters and a couple of iPhone app synths, we charged into the studio, and started hacking away at songs old and new, some of which we'd been working on since 2016. As the song list ballooned, it became clear that some honored the original proto-disco concept, while others returned to the rock 'n roll mean. Not wanting to diffuse either extreme, we settled on a two part release: Undertoad and Kintsugi.
Right now, with the suspension of live music during quarantine, the funds that would usually be dedicated to recording have dried up, so I'm especially grateful for your support in making these albums come to life. I'm so excited to share these two new records and appreciate your taking time to consider backing this campaign. Thank you for everything.
Undertoad
Named after a concept from John Irving's The World According to Garp, this album represents the synth-ier extreme of our sessions. In Garp, the title character's son is warned about the ocean's "undertow" while swimming at the beach. Misheard as "Undertoad", the specter of a great and terrible toad settled just below the ocean's surface comes to represent the dread that lurks just below the sunnier exteriors of life. From there, the amphibious coincidences started stacking up, from Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, to the great Biblical plague depicted in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. This imagery resonated deeply as the title for our electronic aspirations.
Kintsugi
With Kintsugi, we tried to build on the dad rock ambitions of our last record, The Spirit Catches You. In January 2019, I suffered a seizure onstage, and landed on my workhorse acoustic guitar of 12 years. After a string of luthier rejections, the lovely folks at Schoenberg Guitars fixed it, filling in the space between the shards of wood with a caramel-colored epoxy. Several friends noted the similarity between the repaired guitar and the Japanese art form of mending broken pottery by filling the damaged areas with lacquer. Kintsugi reflected both the guitar and the surgical reconstruction of my skull following a 2015 craniotomy, so it seemed like an apt image for finding hope amid transformation.
Cost Breakdown
- Studio Space: $2000
- Engineering & Production: $3500
- Mixing & Mastering: $3500
- Art & Graphics: $500
- Manufacturing: $500
The Team
- James DePrato: producer, guitar, bass, synthesizer, vocals
- Vicente Rodriguez: drums, percussion, melodica
- Rob Dietrich: bass, vocals
- Alex Coltharp: drums
- Jim Bogios: drums
- Ash Powell: vocals
- Melissa Phillips: vocals
- John Adair: engineer
- Nino Moschella: engineer
- Matt Winegar: engineer
- Gawain Mathews: engineer
- Paul Kolderie: mixing
- Pete Weiss: mastering
- Kyle Derry: cover art
- Sara Lee: graphic design
- Edward Saenz: photography
Thank You
I appreciate your continued support in helping me build a career out of writing songs. I will never take that for granted. It's a privilege to dedicate my time to creativity, and every bit of help goes a long way. I can't wait to see you back in the dives and dance halls, the bars and ballrooms once live music returns.