2011-12-03 Release Me!
(Did you see that we posted this earlier than the date up there? What a clever and curious person you must be! Thanks for caring enough to click through. If you got here via the newsletter, you can skip to the bottom for a couple of tidbits you didn't get there.)
For a while now, we've had no good answer when someone asked where they could buy our music. It really sucks to have someone want to own our music, want to give us money for what we love, and have to tell them we don't have anything available.
Well, my dears, that has changed!
Just before we posted this blog, we released our long-awaited Each to Each EP. It's a digital release, so anyone can have it and have it now. Are we excited? You better believe we are! And we hope you are too. (You can buy it here or visit its discography page here.)
Songs about the hopes we cling to and the regrets that cling to us. Rooted in rain-soaked cities and dry mouths, Varnish want to stand by you when the lights go out and occasionally point out the stars.
As many of you know, we started pulling this together in early 2009. We recorded five of these songs at the world-famous London Bridge Studios and at Soul Kitchen Studios, both in Seattle, Washington. For the studio tracks, we got to work with the awesome Mark Clem as our Producer. He's talented and the sort of good guy that you stay friends with and are in other bands with afterwards. (No, really. Half of Varnish have worked on other projects with him since.) Once Mark produced, recorded, and mixed the songs, we had the pleasure of taking them to very talented Ed Brooks at RFI Mastering to be mastered. No wonder people like Pearl Jam and Fleet Foxes use Ed. We didn't think our tracks could sound better, that mastering would make a real difference, but we were wrong. Gleefully, we moved forward!
And then things got slow...We had a lineup change (for positive reasons, and we're all still friends, but that always slows things down) and a load of shows and constant roadblocks with the cover art and so forth...But we're now okay with it, because that's given us a chance to pull together a few fun live tracks. You get more songs and we get a chance to show off aNdi (whom you otherwise only get to hear if you make it to a show). Sometimes, things take a while to work out for good reasons that we just don't see until it's all said and done.
So, here we are. The EP released at last. And doing a little happy dance (well, Amber is...she's kind of a dork sometimes...) as we contemplate the future. We can't wait to hear what you think about this release. And we want you to know that we've got loads more good songs that could become a full-length album. Interested?
Each to Each Trivia #1 The title of the EP comes from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. Amber is a fan of this poem, which includes themes of regret, longing, and frustration all wrapped up in Eliot's great language. And, among the many lines, you'll find these:
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
Each to Each Trivia #2 The original photo for the cover was taken by Jason. Driving down the freeway far too early one morning, he thought that the streetlights from a particular view looked like a spine of lights. The concept intrigued him enough (and went well with some thoughts he and Amber had discussed on light and music previously) to inspire action. A few days later, he went out after a practice to take some pictures. Add a little PhotoShopping by Amber, and the cover photo was finally, well, covered. (The same picture-taking session also yielded the back photo.)
You can find links to the lyrics on this site. You can also send us email if you want to ask questions about the EP. We'll set up an area for Q&A if we get enough.
xxx