Ariadne Thread is a 17 song album we started in 2005. It was finally completed in late 2007. After 2.5 years, numerous engineers & studios, and the help of many gracious friends, we feel satisfied. What took so damn long? A giant tapeworm. You probably already know this story, as it has become legend. We'd spent many days hunkered down at Chasepark Transduction with dear ol' David Barbe. It was late 2005, and the album was nearly in the can when, lo, an omnivorous tapeworm ate both our 2 inch reels. And then ate our cellist & our drummer. We three leftover lasses didn't stick around much longer. Last we saw, Barbe was standing atop a Gemini amplifier holding that worm off with nothing but a baseball bat and a lecture on the physics of sound. After this, we took to field recording on farms, by streams, in the pines; we hopped from studio to studio, never staying too long in just one place for fear a tapeworm would catch the scent of our new reel. The bulk of our studio recordings were engineered by Andy Baker & Ben Holst. The whole thing was mastered by Alex Lowe The following folks can be heard on ARIADNE THREAD. If you click on a name you will be transported to the name-bearer's world... Banjo - Alex Neville | Ariadne Thread (c 2007) Listen to mp3s from Ariadne Thread:    |
A few months after we began recording, the band fell to studying the story of Ariadne & Theseus. Ariadne helped Theseus escape from a labyrinth by giving him a ball of thread to follow out. Claire mused, "This is a beautiful metaphor for one person assisting another person out of confusion & darkness." And Deb thought, "I want this album to somehow encompass that metaphor." And as she read more, Page realized, "The entire story of Ariadne, and not just the bit about the labyrinth, builds on this theme of dark into light, and also brings in new themes of sacrifice, concession, abandonment & rebirth." As the recording process deepened, we lasses realized that we were currently embodying these themes, and that, in fact, most everyone does. Say, who among us has not compromised for love, only to be forsaken? Who has not been lifted from misery by kind hands? Our dear cousin, Wallace Cochran, volunteered to pen a retelling of Ariadne's story. His research uncovered new details that continued to bear resemblance to our lives and to the songs we'd been writing. Taking cues from imagery in Wallace’s writing, Page & Deb did a series of drawings to be included with the album. In this way, we ended up with a small, illustrated book to accompany our album. In maintaining our efforts to be responsible consumers we try to package our music in recycled and recycleable materials made in the USA. In fact, we aim for all of our merchandise to be made in the US, and locally when possible. We chose Stumptown (a worker-owned press in Oregon)to make the casing for ARIADNE THREAD. They did a beautiful offset print on recycled paper using soy-based ink and gold stamping. Our local shop, Bel Jean, printed the guts on recycled linen paper & vellum. And, finally, all our friends brought over their sewing machines and each booklet was collated & bound into the spine of the casing with gold thread. |