Mark Westin

Pre-order March 10 at markwestin.bandcamp.com

Mark talks Tales:

"Tales is my 4^th full-length album. The ten songs on the record are culled from an intensive two-year period of writing.  I wrote close to 50 songs and narrowed down to the ones I felt would fit together thematically.

The unifying thread is that all the songs on Tales are character-driven narratives.  Think of this album like a book of short stories.  You can start at the beginning and go through to the end, or you can dip in and choose one that appeals to you at the moment, then put it down and return later for another.

Tales was recorded at The Building in Marlboro, New York.  After the isolation of Covid I really wanted to get back into a room with other musicians and make an old-school record.

My band for Tales was The Restless Age:  Will Bryant, Lee Falco, and Brandon Morrison.  They’re truly creative and collaborative musicians who have played with Donald Fagen, Marshall Crenshaw, Joan Osborne, The Lemonheads,  Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, Amy Helm and many others. They brought a great energy to the songs.
I wanted the album to feel fresh and immediate, so I gave them only basic sketches in advance and asked them to go with their first instincts in the moment.  We all played together live, and none of the songs took more than three takes to nail down. 

In two days we recorded all ten songs. We overdubbed fiddle by Daisycutter’s Sara Milonovich and bodhran from Scott MX Turner on one song.  Others got backing vocals or instrumental fills but the guts of what you hear on this album is live, the first or second time we’d ever played the song together."

I hope you enjoy it.