I am especially excited to announce the latest Nature’s Neighbor release, Vein Matter.
Front man Mike Walker, Brandon Studer (aka Wren Smiles), and I started this album seven months ago via email and kept bouncing ideas off each other. It was like piecing together Frankenstein’s creature for its reanimation, and we were mad scientists at work. Then things eventually came to a slow stop sometime in May, and the three or four tracks we had produced with began to gather digital dust. You know how it goes.
Fast forward a few months to this August when Radhika Bhatt and I set out on a trip to Chicago in a car packed to the brim with musical instruments (plus we kidnapped Zachary Klaus on the way) to stay with Mike Walker and Cheer Zhao. I had left the city over a year ago and it was my first time coming back. During that trip we all reconnected, reveled, and recorded five of the nine tracks that are on this album. Also featured is Austin Thomasson (aka Austin James Christ) who provided vocals and guitar during an all day recording session at his place in Logan Square. We had regained our momentum and set out to finish what we had started.
To me, Vein Matter encapsulates many of our collective dreams and feelings of Chicago, and of leaving something we love so much behind us as we continually venture onward into the next chapter of our lives. As such, I am happy to leave this behind for you all as I make my way across the globe to live in India for eight months. Cheers!
Big thanks to everyone who helped this creature walk on two feet, and Will Killingsworth for mastering the album so quickly.
During a trip to Bozeman, MT in 2013 I composed these seven pieces of music using recorded interviews of my family members. The central character of these stories is my late grandmother, Beth Mast, who shared with us many memories and stories of my grandfather. Although many of the pieces are abstract representations of the time I spent with my family uncovering these stories some of the pieces are more explicit and paint a picture of my grandfather that I hadn’t seen before.
Composed and produced in the final weeks of 2015, this short collection of songs features the talents of Ryan Selove (guitar), Jed Lingat (electric bass), Radhika Bhatt (trumpet, vocals), Morrison Mast (percussion), and Rod Mast (trumpet) with a cameo appearance by the members of Fatkid. The titular track, See You Around The Moon, features percussion samples from Redmoon’s Boneshaker Halloween Party and is dedicated to all the amazing people I worked with during my time there as a crew member.
Terrill Mast 