Putting It Together

Songs for an Impending Future will continue shortly, but for now, let me direct your attention to one of the truest, most beautifully phrased descriptions of compositional process. Behold, Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg on his band's new album, The Golden Archipelago:

"To write those songs it's important to me to think of the album as a whole, as its own world with its own rules and central images. And for those images this time I wanted to go back to those islands, back to specific people and places and events, but also feelings and impressions, like the overwhelming and thrilled confusion you feel when you arrive at a place that's unlike anything you ever imagined. When you realize that understanding what you're seeing might take years of research and backtracking. And I wanted the album to reflect that kind of confusion: a sense of entire worlds of which you only see tiny pieces. And then it's up to you to put them together."

In case you're wondering, the album itself is stunning, magnificent, gorgeous, and a host of other grandiose adjectives. It is my favorite album of the new year, and is thoroughly deserving of your attention.