It was early March 2020 and the Big Thief tour had just been cut short, so I flew from Europe to NYC. It just so happened that there was a little cabin available for rent right next door to Zoe and Brian in the mountains in Western MA. So I grabbed my truck and drove out to the country. As I settled into the cabin over the course of a month, I grew really connected to the space itself. The one room cabin felt like the inside of an acoustic guitar -- it was such a joy to hear the notes reverberate in the space . I got a hankering to capture it, so I called my friend Phil and asked “How’d you like to get outta the city and make a record that sounds like the inside of an acoustic guitar?” Phil said “100%” and by the grace of some of our dear friends, we were able to gather the materials needed. Brendan lent us about 45 tape machines. Eli lent us a binaural head (which looked remarkably like Phil), and Shahzad lent us a pile of XLR cables. I drove into the city at 5am on the 20th of April, scooped up Phil and then we filled my truck to the brim as we stopped and gathered the gear along the way back to Massachusetts. We unloaded all of the equipment into the small cabin and began setting up. Unfortunately, one of the first things that happened was the unstable electricity fried four of our tape machines, including the Otari 8 track. Bill tried to fix it at his shop in Sturbridge, but it was beyond repair. After almost three weeks of setup and troubleshooting, the studio finall