Recording this album made us very happy. We are still smiling about it.
It is very much different than what we mentally conceived when we began recording in 2002 at Radium Studio. In fact, two reels got banished, one of which contained the music we had been publicly releasing in sampler form. The three songs on the sampler were: Love Like A Sailor, Hearts in Jars, and Home Is The Place. Those recordings will be released on an album in 2005.

We began recording in late 2002 and completed everything in February 2004. We recorded half of it on 1 inch tape at Radium Studio in Athens, GA. Chris Bishop was the engineer and mixed the sound directly from 1 inch to his computer where he nipped and tucked a few thangs. The other half was recorded on 2 inch tape at Zero Return in Atlanta, GA. Rob del Bueno engineered everything and mixed it all down to 1/2 inch tape. Tied This Song To A Tree was recorded by Claire in Will's living room on her new Roland 2400. That song was mixed, and the rest of the album mastered, by Alex Lowe somewhere in Marietta. Everyone who had a hand in this album is owed our deepest thanx for their patience and diligence and physical attractiveness.

The ambient sounds were recorded in various places: a dark, rainy street, a post office, a house party, a driveway, more n' more. Claire travels with her mini-disc recorder so that she can catch the world red-handed.

Deb and Page drew all of the pictures for the album packaging and booklet, with the exception of the "heart in hand" image. This drawing was taken from one of several old photographic slides owned by Deb's lovergirl. There is no date on the slide. It is glass and is about 4x4 inches. We wanted to use the picture because it represents vulnerability. This is to say, for instance, when an artist chooses to make others aware of their art, then the artist and the art become vulnerable to criticism and/or admiration. We researched this image and found it had been used by numerous fraternal organizations, namely the Free Masons and the Lodge of Odd Fellows. This news struck us as crappy and unfortunate being that we wanted so badly to use the image. Then we learned that before it was used by those folks, this symbol was the seal of John Calvin. And that didn't seem too bad: Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere, OR, "My heart I give thee, Lord, eagerly and sincerely." OR "My heart I offer the promptly and sincerely." And we do.

Jason Hatcher was the final sprinter in our mad dash. He and Claire sat up very late weekend nights at the Creative Loafing office churning the layout for the CD and the packaging. That man is a wizard and we still owe him a fried shrimp dinner. The packaging was off-set printed by Blackberry Press, a division of Stumptown Printers in Oregon. We chose 100% post-consumer-waste recycled paper and soy-based ink. The package is their superb glue/staple free design so that it is re-recycleable should the listener be unsatisfied.

Claire searched high n' low for a company that made CDs or vinyl albums from recycled plastic. As yet, this option does not exist as the plastic must be very, very high grade if it is going to hold data. So, we settled on CD Forge, located down the street from the printing press. And also used Rovix (in North Carolina) as our back-up.