Sierra Hull - The Movements

My guest this week is Sierra Hull and we're chatting about her instrumental project The Movements.

We talk about how the piece came about, as the result of a FreshGrass Concerto commission, how she approached writing the piece, with and for her current band (Avery Merritt, Erik Coveney, Mark Raudabaugh, and Shaun Richardson), and the challenges presented by releasing a project like this. 

We also discuss how the piece has developed since it was first written and how she and the band incorporate it into their live shows, as well as what it was like going back into the studio to record live, filmed performances of the tracks.

It's a wonderful piece of music and, as always, it was a treat getting to chat with Sierra.

Find out more and order copies of The Movements at sierrahull.com

Check out Sierra's YouTube channel to watch live studio performances of The Movements

For more on FreshGrass you can hear Oli Chanoff talking about the FreshGrass commissions program and some of the wonderful music it's produced.

To hear my previous interviews with Sierra, check out these episodes:

• Sierra Hull - A Tiptoe High Wire (2025)
• Sierra Hull Interview (2023)
• Sierra Hull Returns (2024)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I've never released a full instrumental thing. I've always written instrumental tunes, had some instrumental music on all of my records. Um, but this just seemed fun, an idea to kind of be able to throw paint at the wall and and just sort of have the freedom to dive into something different, kind of outside of the bluegrass structure, but also trying to bring some of that influence. And I thought with this group of musicians, that sounded really exciting to me to try to write for this band.

Matt 0:26

Hi, this is Matt, and you listen to Bluegrass Jamalong the podcast for anyone and everyone who loves bluegrass. My guest this week is Sierra Hull. Um, those of you who have been listening for a while will know she's been on the podcast a couple of times before. I'm delighted she is back to chat about the movement, which is the instrumental piece that came out of a Fresh Grass commission um that she wrote a couple of years ago when recorded and has now been released. Um we chatted about this a little bit when I spoke to her for Tiptoe Highwire last year uh and in previous interviews, but the full thing is out now. Um so I just wanted to have a conversation with her about the process, about how she came to write it, kind of you know, the intent behind it, and because it's just a fascinating bit of music, and I really, really love it. Um we chat about the kind of Fresh Grass Commission, um, the bunch of people she's got in the band and how she kind of wrote with and for them. Um, you know, some of the inspiration behind it, how she approaches this kind of thing. Um really interesting. I like some of the challenges about how you release a piece of music like this, what you do with it. Um yeah, really cool conversation. I really, really love this piece of music and just wanted to dig into some of the details and have a conversation about it. Um if you've missed any of the interviews I've done with Sierra before, I will stick a link in the show notes, you can go and find them. I'll also stick a link in the show notes to where you can go and see the videos for these chats because there's some very cool videos of these um filmed at Fresh Grass Studio. Um go and have a look at those, they're really, really cool. Um, and also I'll stick links into where you can go and buy copies of this record as well. So that is it, I think. Um go and check all that out, but first have a listen to me chatting with Sierra Hull all about the movements. Sierra Hole, welcome back again to Bluegrass Jamallock.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Hey Matt, great to see you. Thanks for having me.

Matt 2:29

Yeah, you too. I am excited to talk about um what we're talking about tonight because we've sort of touched on it slightly a couple of times when we've talked before, but it is now out in all its glory. And we're gonna chat about the movements.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, totally. I remember us talking about that a while ago now, so it's it's nice to finally have them out into the world. Long time coming, as a lot of things I tend to work on.

Matt 2:51

Well, I mean, this is quite a short gap between um releases for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah, well, it's funny because you know, we were so busy last year with all the things around a tiptoe high wire, which was the last time you and I spoke, and um, you know, this was kind of sitting there, kind of brewing on the back burner a little bit, kind of saving it until we put the tiptoe high wire music out into the world and then uh you know knew we would eventually be getting the movements out there, but just had to kind of find the right window.

Matt 3:19

Yeah, well it's great to have mail and to be able to hear them finally. And for people who kind of don't know the background of this piece, this started out as a Fresh Grass Commission, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

It did, yeah. So Fresh Grass being a festival up in North Adams, Massachusetts, that um so many of our Bluegrass friends have played. Um, a really great festival, and each year they ask usually two or three folks, I think, or or bands or or solo artists to commission, you know, can we commission you to write something specific? And in this case, they came to me and they said we were gonna play the festival anyway, and they said, Well, uh, how would you feel about if we commission you to write a bluegrass concerto? And um, of course, I was like, Well, that sounds super fun, you know, but like what's a bluegrass concerto? You know, it's like that kind of idea of like, okay, I kind of think I know what that means, but also, you know, they were like, we give you full liberty to just take that and run with it, whatever that means, whatever you want to write, but but we like the idea of thinking it would be cool if you wrote an instrumental something. So at the time I had just started working with, I guess I had been working with most of the guys in my current band for about a year, um, and our bass player had just come on board that year, that very year, which was 2022, I guess. And so it was still pretty new. I mean, you know, like getting to know each other musically and all that, but they're so talented, and I kind of thought, man, I had always wanted to do an instrumental record, but just hadn't really I, you know, to this day I've never released a full instrumental thing. I've always written instrumental tunes, had some instrumental music on all of my records. Um, but this just seemed fun, an idea to kind of be able to throw paint at the wall and and just sort of have the freedom to dive into something different, kind of outside of the bluegrass structure, but also trying to bring some of that influence. And I thought with this group of musicians, that sounded really exciting to me to try to write for this band. So yeah, I had a lot of like pre-existing ideas that I kind of thought, you know, we all as musicians, I think, have voice memos and stacks of ideas kind of laying around. And so there was like lots of little seeds and things that immediately came to mind when I decided to to bite off this project. And and then uh of course the guys brought all their voices as well to it. So it was super fun to make and write.

Matt 5:42

And how kind of open is the brief? Like what is there any definition of what concerto means beyond like it's a three-movement thing, or is it totally open?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Well, typically, I mean, and I'm I'm no expert on concerto for sure, um, but I think the format is usually fast, slow, fast. That's sort of like the flow of a typical concerto. So usually in three pieces, which is why we did three different movements. And um, yeah, with the first one having more of an up-tempo kind of approach, usually the set the the middle part, you know, the second part kind of opens up and can kind of slow down and breathe a little bit. So, I mean, beyond that, that was sort of about all I went into it thinking about. It's just, you know, sort of having a bit of a fast, slow, fast format, three, three pieces, and trying to find a way to showcase everybody in the band where there's, you know, it's easy sometimes, and and I've heard like other people talk about this too, like, because you know, mandolin is my instrument, I can kind of write on mandolin, sometimes guitar, but like, you know, there's a lot of mandolin-esque ideas that I'm naturally just gonna start dumping, you know. But then trying to open that up and go, well, cool, this sounds this sounds cool on the mandolin, but what if this part was played on the guitar? What if actually the fiddle played this? Or instead of this kind of rhythmic thing that I'm doing, what if we figured out even a more interesting way to open up the drum kit and let him do something, you know? So so trying to take some existing ideas and and sort of spread them out throughout the whole ensemble so that it wasn't just I didn't want it to just feel like a mandolin bluegrass concerto. I wanted it to feel like a real showcase of this band and something they could get excited about um, you know, working on with me too.

Matt 7:33

And I think that really comes across because it's one of the the things that I sort of first really noticed about this piece hearing the whole thing is just how much stuff is passed around between you. Like, and it's obviously highly composed rather than a kind of conversational fiddle tune thing going on. But the amount of kind of thread that passes from instrument to instrument, and then the sort of layers of stuff going on together, and it's it it doesn't often stay on one instrument for a long time, and I really like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's it's fun to kind of now have some good distance from it and sort of just perform the piece, like we just did a big West Coast tour here in the States um this this past month, and you know, played all three movements together in the show every night, which I wasn't I wasn't really sure how that was gonna be received at first. It was kind of like, can we get away with playing? You know, it's not super long, it's like just shy of 15 minutes, the whole thing, the whole thing together. But still, you know, that's sort of it's a lot to sort of dump on your audience, you know, to to take in. But man, the crowd was so receptive to it. And I think like um it just brought us a lot of joy being able to finally share it, um, you know, what feels like after we've sort of lived with it for a while. Like we've been living with it for a while. It's just this is a typical story, I guess, of finally releasing a project. You know, you go from the writing process of where it's all really new and you feel like, you know, can we even play this thing without stopping? Can we get through all the pieces and and sort of the, you know, the way it felt when we premiered it, like back in 2022, definitely felt that way. I mean, I was writing little things and we were rehearsing it pretty much up until the moment we played it. I mean, it was a little bit like one of the only times we played the whole thing fully through was at the debut of the piece. You know, it was kind of like, okay, let's work on this section, okay, let's rehearse this section, and then finally it was like, okay, now the time is here, we gotta play the whole thing. And uh, and I remember there's a photo of us, um which we we laugh at sometimes because there's a photo of us when we obviously hit the last note and we manage to play the full piece without really like screwing anything up very much. And we all look so stoked.

unknown 9:42

It's really funny.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

We just all look like we're like, yay, we did it.

Matt 9:49

Yeah, it's I there's nothing kind of quite like that thing of living on the edge of am I gonna get to the end of this or not? So like particularly in a band situation, you're almost looking round, going, is everybody still here? Do we leave anybody behind? You know?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, 100%. So yeah, that like from I guess what I'm trying to say though, is going from that moment to like now, fast forward, you know, a few years later, where we recorded the studio versions of this stuff. Um I guess it would have been the fall of 2022 when we premiered it and it was like early in 2023, um, we we tracked it. And so it kind of just been sitting there, you know, and it's funny to see how like stuff has kind of evolved from the live performance from those original studio recordings. And so now not that the piece is just suddenly easy to play, there's you know, some stuff that's just obviously technically fatiguing or challenging to play. So, you know, I'm not gonna act like it's a piece of cake now, but but I think we know what the piece is and we know what it does and how, you know, and in our best performance of it, what it can be. So, you know, there's a a just a I don't know, there's a a different way of sharing the music when you've had that kind of time to live with it. And I think the the separation between recording it and then finally now putting it out. And we've played movement three a lot in our live show over the last few years, um, and occasionally would play one or two, but it was pretty rare. You know, I think we kind of felt like let's sort of just save this back a little bit. But uh but movement three had kind of become a bit of a staple in our live show, and people would you know ask us, when are you gonna put that out? And I'm like, it's coming, I promise. So, but it's nice to finally be able to put it out with having this much time to sort of absorb what it is for all of us, I think.

Matt 11:35

Also to get to go back into the studio and record the videos that you've been putting out of these because that it's really interesting just from uh kind of how the piece has evolved slightly thing. But also with a piece like this, we were talking about just how much stuff is passed around. It's also really visually interesting to watch because you get to see that happen.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, it was it was fun to have a chance to return back to the Fresh Grass Festival last fall. It's the first time we'd been back since we premiered the piece, and they have this beautiful studio there, and we just kind of started thinking, like, man, you know, we know we're gonna release this stuff in the spring. What if we could just go in the studio and have an actual like live visual too, with video and everything of sort of like representing the current moment of this music too, which sounds funny because in some ways it's like of course the studio releases is a current release, but it's also something that we now recorded, you know, a while back. So this f this felt like kind of like a nice way to bookend. And also, yeah, just give people the visual because sometimes with a piece like this, there is a lot going on. There's a lot of things to kind of you know try to wrap your head around if you know you've got five instruments kind of playing some kind of counterline at the same time. It's like to be able to sort of visually, you know, put two and two together, I think can be a fun thing for the audience.

Matt 12:58

Yeah, I think it really enhances it. Like I'm not a fan of music videos per se. I'd rather just listen to something, but something like this where you're watching a performance. I think it really does kind of give you a little insight into what's going on sometimes. Because in like complicated instrumental music can be a bit dense and tricky to get into at first to kind of get a little tag on it, and because you haven't got the structure of like lyrics just give you the structure of a piece. They tell you which section you're in, and it's obvious when something's recurring, but with something like this, particularly it's it's just great to have a through line that you can sort of follow.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, for sure. And I mean I think like, you know, these pieces all work separately, but it's really kind of meant to be listened to altogether. Like I said, we've played movement three as its own, you know, you find yourself on a a festival set, like we were just at New Orleans Jazz Festival this past weekend, and you know, it's like you get a 75-minute festival set. We're probably not gonna play the whole 15-minute concerto in the middle of that set. Though maybe if we were gonna do it anywhere, maybe that could have been the place to do it. But uh But yeah, I think I think any of the pieces kind of work, especially one and three work really well just as kind of standalone instrumental pieces. Um, but you know, in in a perfect world folks could listen to them all back to back.

Matt 14:18

When you were saying earlier about having this sort of voice memo app full of ideas and sort of instrumental thoughts, and you've been look kind of looking for maybe an excuse to write something instrumental, how did you kind of approach it as a starting point? What was your kind of your first thought in terms of how you were going to approach this as a writing thing?

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah, well, so part of it was just me kind of going, okay, what are some small existing ideas, in some cases like reasonable chunks of stuff, but also like, you know, basic ideas that that then I could sort of think about not just as, you know, me trying to do some mandolin thing, but how we could open it up to other people. So like even the opening, let's say like movement one, there's there's like um the way it opens, it's it's almost like this echo kind of thing that's happening where I play one note, somebody else plays another chord, it's like kind of between especially um, you know, all five instruments starting on like the and the four and one, you know, and then you kind of dance around this this sort of idea. So I had demoed, you know, me doing that on Mandolin, like I don't know, gosh, could have even been ten years ago, uh, of this idea and had this, you know, the like the opening part. Um, but once I started thinking about this band doing it, it's kind of like, okay, I mean, I remember, you know, sitting down with the guitar and going, well, maybe guitar could sound cool playing this piece, you know, maybe this maybe if if later at the end it came back to this, but I'm not the one playing it, it's guitar playing it. And I remember, you know, I play guitar enough to kind of figure it out, sit down, and I was like, okay. Um, and then I thought, boy, this seems kind of hard on guitar though. Like on mandolin at least, I have some open strings and it's it's stretchy, but it's it makes sense why I would write it, you know. On guitar, I was like, oh, this is all really contained. And so I remember like videoing uh myself and sending it to Sean, like, hey, could you play this on guitar? And is there an easier way to do this? This seems to be what I like, this seems to be the best fingering and all that, but like I'm sure you could figure out something easier, and then you know, turns out nope, it's just really hard on guitar. And so, but also knowing that if anybody can do it, Sean can do it, he can play it. And so just taking some ideas and sort of recycling them around, you know, the the kind of middle A flat section of movement one, you know, again, I had sort of the majority of that um sort of existed as something I'd been trying to make into something for a long time and had just never really found a home for it. And uh in hindsight, it was great because it was like just this existing idea that then I could go, oh, maybe it could be part of this concerto. And again, trying to find ways to open it up and leave space for one instrument to play a line instead of it all feeling like some big mandolin, you know, extravaganza trying to open things up. But then ideas like there's these rotating hits, you know, that happen with the band on the on the first part of movement one, and like, you know, getting together with everybody. And I just had the idea that to do straight hits, and then Mark was like, oh, what if we rotated every eighth note, basically, so that where the hits are happening, you know, and so like having these guys' minds and brains, you know, as part of the process, even though maybe a big chunk of the musical ideas were like things that I had kind of already been storing away and pulling and kind of then going, okay, what happens if the guitar plays this or the man plays this? The piece really became what it was by everybody contributing their own, you know, both arrangement and compositional ideas along the way, where you know, maybe I might have an idea for something, but it wasn't the most friendly, you know, bass thing. And then we go, hey, well, can you actually just make this what if this is a bass moment instead of me playing some crazy line? What if you kind of take the liberty to create something here, you know? Um, yeah. So I mean, it was just a lot of a lot of little moving parts like that, like movement two. I had this idea that it would be kind of fun to write something based on the notes behind the the nut for a long time, you know, the doo-doo doo doo doo doo doo. And and uh again, I remember kind of thinking, oh, well, this could be interesting, like, and then what if we built the melody off of like, well, I wonder what Sean's notes are? And so then I'm going, hey, yo, what are your notes behind the guitar? Okay, now what if you played those notes, you know? And so trying to, I don't know, just just let everybody have room to bring things to the table, you know, with movement two. I basically told um, you know, uh Eric and Avery, like, you know, I think the main idea of this would be like a six-eight feel against four. Like I kind of went into it knowing that. There's a a Brad Meldow piece that um um called When It Rains, that's uh a a little bit of an inspirational lift, you know, from from that idea where it's like once the drums drops in, you're like, oh, that's actually four. You know, so the idea of kind of like if something starts in a more triplet y feel and you know, six, so to speak, um, that it's actually just triplets against four, you know, with with the way the drums hit. So just little things like that, wanting that part to breathe, have a really simple kind of feel and melody, um, with an interesting rhythm. And uh and yeah, just like kind of sort of just seeing what happens when we would all get together and then, you know, slowly recycling other other parts, you know, from the different sections of the movements. Maybe if we were looking for a way to, you know, add a fiddle part somewhere, we might go, well, can we pull inspiration from one of the other lines in one of the other movements and sort of like try to tie it back in somehow? So, you know, little bits of that, not to go on and on in the nerdy sense, but just you know, lots of throwing paint at the wall, kind of having a bigger vision of it, and then like letting everyone bring their own goodness to it, you know.

Matt 20:29

Well, it's really interesting because it's there's such a kind of rich tradition of kind of um progressive like instrumental string band music going back to like Chris McQuintet and before. And lots of variations of that through the kind of Baylor style of stuff onto Hawktail and But I don't I don't know of anything that has drums as such an integral part of it as this. It feels like quite a new sound to have that kind of those textures, but with drums being very much a a but a voice rather than like just a rhythm component.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think we're lucky to get to play with Mark because he's he's so good at the acoustic music kind of thing. I mean, I didn't grow up playing with drummers, I totally grew up, you know, full-on bluegrass kid, Mandolin being the drums. I never really thought I would have drums in my band. I mean, we've probably talked about this before. Um so I just think, you know, he happens to be the right aesthetic to know how to to weave in and out of a piece like this in a way, you know, that you can say somewhat comes from a jazz background too, but also just having a lot of experience in playing dynamically and all kinds of styles of music. Um so yeah, it's been really fun just kind of exploring because I do think that kind of I agree it sort of sets the text the textural side of what this music sounds like apart a little bit from some of the other more modern acoustic instrumental things.

Matt 21:54

And it's so surprising just how melodic he is, because you think of drums as being a Rhythm instrument, obviously they are, but when you hear people play them and you hear phrasing and you hear melody, it's just such a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Absolutely. I think that's an awesome way to describe who's playing as a very melodic drummer, which is an interesting thing. But it also, you know, what's cool about it is it also frees me up to be able to do other things on the mandolin, you know. Whereas, like if you think about what even movement two is, you know, if if I were really wanting to achieve in sort of the traditional bluegrass string band kind of ensemble, that 6'8 uh feel against a you know a 4-4 feel, you know, then mandolin would probably be the thing to drop in, and then another instrument like fiddle would have to be the main melody, probably, you know. Um whereas in this case, because he's holding on that four, then mandolin can be the first melody, and then when fiddle kind of opens up and breathes on the B part, it's just, you know, it's it's such a nice open, like, ah, there's the fiddle, you know. So um, yeah, it's really fun to kind of dive into that and have somebody that's that's able to, you know, paint with a really broad palette, you know, musically on the drums like that.

Matt 23:15

Well, I love that part in movement. I I love anything that intentionally drags your ear around a little bit and shifts the ground under you so you're not entirely sure where you stand and then tells you where you're standing, you go, of course. And there's the lovely moment because the the guitar obviously comes in intentionally, kind of every beat exactly the same, no inflection to tell you where you are. And the drum screen you go, Ah, and you go, okay, no, we are having the drum screen. But then you come in playing the melody and you're stretching it around and playing right on the back of the beat and and not kind of like locking it in, but just adding another level of slight complexity on top of that. So the kind of the breadth of all that together is a really lovely moment.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Thank you. Thank you. And I mean the the first part is a little bit intense, you know. It's like I can see how if you were just like, you know, clicking on movement to either on streaming or YouTube or something, and you just heard like the first minute, you'd be like, what's going on? What is this? You know, um, but I think that's also part of the fun, is that when it finally opens up, there's sort of like a release in the simplicity of it. You know, there's there's enough intrigue for it to be interesting, I think, as a listener, but also like the whole idea is that you can kind of go, uh, let me just take a breath from all the information I just heard, especially like say coming out of the end of movement one, which is one of the most I'd say it's one of the biggest counterpoint movements of the whole thing, you know, or or or um sections rather of of all the movements. And so to come kind of come out of that where you've really got five instruments like just doing all kinds of stuff against each other, to then having this, you know, simplicity of what movement two eventually becomes um was sort of the goal that it would be a moment of release.

Matt 25:01

And do you find did once the piece was kind of finished, was there a lot of improvisation left? Because you see you're you're saying people were bringing ideas to the mix while you were putting it all together and kind of the arrangements and um did it end up fairly settled after that, or did it is there a lot of improvisation left in it?

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Well, so let's see, movement one, pretty much all of it is is improvise or uh is through composed, except for there's kind of that jammy open solo section that's like, you know, after we've played the fiddle tune part in the middle of the tune, which is an all-in-a-flat, um, then you know, it sort of opens up. So when we were playing it live on tour this this past month, for example, you know, that part's free rain. We can kind of you might quote things from the record because sometimes it just feels good to do that, but also like it's kind of free rain the way people are weaving in and out of at least me, um Sean and Avery as the main soloists there. It's like all that's just open territory to be be whatever. But then, you know, when we hit the the fiddle tune part, it's like there's parts where the fiddle's doubling me, and then guitar, you know, has a little counterline against you know these different sections, and it is moving um time signatures quite a lot too. So, you know, it's like most of that is through composed, um, all the way up to the very end. Um movement two, you know, some of it it's interesting. Like I would say, you know, 99% of it is pretty through composed, but the opening part sort of started with just being like, what happens if you guys just, you know, I kind of gave Avery and and uh Eric a little bit of free reign on that one to just kind of improvise a bunch of different openings and let's just kind of see what happens. And so funny enough, like some of what they played improvised on the premiere at the Fresh Grass Festival um was so cool that we're like, can you kind of just do that in the studio? It almost like became a part, you know what I mean? Even though I think in my mind that was gonna be like I wanted there to be a little bit of improv on every piece, but then that one it almost became such a memorable thing, and it and that one was supposed to be the improv that they get their improv moment there. Um, but it, you know, it just became almost like a memorable movement against all puns intended, um, their counterpoint against each other, the way it happened to work out, that they almost kind of like relearned some of what they played. So it's not always gonna be a hundred percent like the record, but it's dialing from the inspiration of something that was originally improvised. Um, and then every now and then the little section at the end, you know, Sean may dance around that part, you know, his guitar part just a little bit when he finally gets the melody at the very end. But for the most part, yeah, it's all pretty through composed. And then uh movement three, it's all pretty much through composed, except for the solo sections that that you hear, and everybody in the band gets one with drums going first. Um and then uh, you know, later fiddle, guitar, mandolin, bass, all that when we play it live is always always different. We're always pushing in those moments to see what we can do live. That's just kind of fun and and um keeping each other, you know, on our toes a little bit. And that's all over like some hits too, which funny enough, like sometimes I try to go, hmm, like I said, I can kind of point to that Brad Meldale thing and go, yeah, I think I always wanted to write something like that, where it was like, you know, the shock of when the drums come in and then finally like working with a drummer, I was like, oh, that'd be fun to like do that in the kind of acoustic sense with like guitar or mandolin. Uh and you know, even those hits, I think, as simple as they are, I can say I think that was my like nod to my buddy Corey Wong a little bit. There's been so much stuff where, you know, playing with him, the band, there's like these fun hits that people get to improvise over, and like if you have a really tight rhythm section that can nail syncopated kind of hits, so where the third one is a little bit more syncopated, um, you know, I I can definitely say, oh, I think that's probably where that where that inspiration came from to do that. You know, so it's it's interesting to kind of dissect it and kind of go, all right, well, you know, where where do you kind of give the uh the props to the inspiration for some of this stuff, and then other things just kind of fall out of the air a little bit.

Matt 29:30

Well, it's interesting. I talked to Chris Eldridge a while ago, and he said that when it wasn't even Punch Brothers at that point, but when they were doing the How to Grow a Woman from the Ground record, there was a definite sense that Watch At Breakdown was kind of a a bit of a tip of the hat to Whitewater. For sure. But you know, and it's and just those things have gone. I'd like to do something like that. That obviously ends up being nothing like it really, but sure, totally. Do you have record like instrumental records like that? That you sort of that are your gold standard for for that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Oh man, well, I mean, I even even something like Not All Who Wonder Are Lost, you know, if we're gonna talk about Chris, you know, Feely, it's like that was a record that came out and I think influenced every Madeline player my age, you know. Uh most of us probably sat down and tried to learn every note of it, you know. Um, certainly things like the Strength in Numbers records or, you know, um, yeah, some of the um, you know, Bayla's bluegrass, you know, instrumental records and things like that, um, like Drive or you know, Tales of the Acoustic Planet. Um, yeah, definitely I think they're in there. Kind of like, you know, before we started this recording, you were mentioning talking to Tim O'Brien and one of his songs, and how, you know, it's like some of that stuff, if you've heard it long enough, and and I think especially at a pivotal time in your life, like some of those records are, those Nickel Creek records, the, you know, Feely solo albums, they're kind of they're deep in the they're deep in the psyche, the musical psyche, and and I'm sure that that influence inevitably creeps out, you know.

Matt 31:08

Yeah, it's hard to imagine how it couldn't really. Um and um did you did you sort of think about how you might release this? Because it's it's a funny it's a funny thing to do, isn't it? It's to put out 15 minutes of music. And like the one of the joys of streaming is you can put anything out at any point. But Jerry Douglas went down the route of including his concerto on an album. Jacob Jolliff did the same. It's a strange kind of thing to think about putting out into the world, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 31:34

It is, and I certainly thought for the longest time, I don't really know what to do with this. Like I feel like it's uh it's something I'm proud of that we did, and I feel like it's worth sharing with people, but I'm not sure really how to do it. And I I wondered if I should write some more stuff or put, you know, could even put a few vocal songs on a project that, but ultimately I just kind of felt like, you know, this kind of is what it is, and I sort of just want to give it to people being the thing, and not sort of not saying in any way that if the choice for an artist to add stuff around it is watering it down, because that can be the absolute right, like creative choice too. But for me, I just didn't I felt like anything I would be adding to it would be for some weird marketing value more than the right creative decision for releasing it. But it is like kind of interesting because you know, as part of this, like you can't, well, at least in my discussions, if I'm not misunderstanding, like we kind of just had to drop the whole thing all at once because it's not over a certain amount of time. So, like if you release more than whatever percentage of an album before the album is out, like it it sort of gets clumped in this weird thing with streaming. So it was like because it's only three tracks and it's only like 15 minutes, one track is a significant portion of that, right? So it's like basically then I was advised that we couldn't like even sprinkle it out and we were just gonna have to put the whole thing out anyway. So I was kind of like, well, screw it. This is how it's meant to be listened to anyway. So yeah, it's it's a little bit like does does feel like from a you know, trying to get people to listen to something standpoint. It's like you put out a record these days, you usually roll out several singles in advance. This there was not really an opportunity to do that. It's just kind of like, hey everybody, for anyone paying attention, here's this thing, and we're just giving it to you. Um yeah, but you know, that's that's part of it. And I sort of look at this as a um, I don't know, just like a a creative, like more I hate to use the word legacy project because that's kind of a weird thing to say. But like, you know what I mean. It's just something that I feel like is a moment in time, it's something that I'm um creatively proud that we made and feel like, you know, it can live among the the catalogue in whatever way that people find their way to it, you know.

Matt 34:01

Well, I think that's one of the beautiful things about the Fresh Grass Commissions is they sort of create a space for people to create a thing they may not necessarily either get around to or feel they can or have the space to. It just it it's like it's almost like a gift of time in a way to do a thing that might not be the thing you'd normally do.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah, a gift of time, and then once you like uh agree to do it, you gotta do it. You know, it's like I had all these instrumental things sitting around for a long time, but you know, didn't have a home for all these pieces, didn't have all the connectors for them, and it's just easy to be like, well, this isn't that gonna be the most, you know, this isn't the thing I need to be spending my time on right now, because I've got this, you know, that's like kind of coming up, and it's like, you know, when somebody sort of poses the challenge, would you like to do this? And then it sort of seems like, oh, well, you're kind of giving me permission to do it. So okay, I'll have I'll have a home to be able to share it, you know, even if it is just in this live setting. But then you spend so much time working on something like that. And then even for the band, like learning it, it's like a little bit like, well, are we really gonna only play it this one time? And this was just for this this one 15-minute performance never to be heard of again. And so it kind of felt like, well, you know, we should capture it, we could record, we should record it and eventually put it out into the world. So and I'll I'll say at first I didn't think like we were a little late in in really thinking about it, just knowing they were coming out, and I think the idea was like, oh, we'll just we'll just put it up on streaming, that's all it's gonna be. It's not really long enough for a regular LP, it's too short for a seven-inch, because the seven-inch, like we we did a couple Christmas tracks um two years ago, released you know, an A side, B side, but there's three sides to this. So I was like, I don't really know how to release it. I mean, we could do a CDE, but it seems like you'd want to do some sort of LP. And and so it kind of was late in the game, and we're like, wait a minute, we could we could actually have all all three songs, all three tracks on one side, and then on the other side, they can do this cool, like etching art design. So that's that's coming soon. Folks can pre-order that, but it's yeah, it's exciting to go, oh well, we can actually, I don't know, there's something about like putting out singles on streaming, and you can kind of throw up stuff anytime you want on this the streaming platforms, and folks listen to it, and that's cool. I I do love the freedom of just being able to put something out and not feel like you have to have everything be physical, but man, you work on something like this and you invest so much time and energy and money and all the things into like recording it and and putting it out, it's kind of exciting to go, oh, it can live in a physical format too. You know, as somebody that just grew up with physical albums and stuff, it's it's exciting to feel like because I didn't think we were gonna be able to do that, I thought it was just gonna be digital only, so I'm excited that we could actually have like you know, a tangible physical release of it as well to just exist.

Matt 37:09

Yeah, it's uh it's lovely to be able to do that, and I think sometimes um there's something about the freedom of having been there online and streaming ball is wonderful, but there's also something really lovely about just making a conscious choice to put a thing on to take a piece of plastic or whatever and put it on and make one choice that lasts for however long that choice is, rather than flitting between songs. And I found myself doing it a lot more recently, and there's there's there's a little bit of a ritual about it as well, and it's sort of it's like creating a moment to stop and do something, rather than it being constant wallpaper almost.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Absolutely. No, I I think uh, you know, that's it's a sacred kind of listen, a way to listen in in today's day and age where we just have everything at our fingertips and we're all walking around with our airpods and stuff all the time. And you know, I love listening to stuff too, but it's also like, you know, to really like sit here in my little office and put on a vinyl and you know, really pump it through nice speakers and and enjoy that is is um I don't know, it's just a special way to actually hear something that to me just feels like you can internalize it differently than, you know, the listening while distracted, as most of us probably do, running around doing stuff. At least I do, you know, half the time when I am listening to music, it's when I'm walking through an airport or cleaning my house or like I'm sort of I mean, I'm l exercising, like I'm I'm listening, but I'm also in the midst of something else. Whereas if I choose to put on an LP, I'm gonna sit here in this chair and just like listen to it, you know, and that's it's a different experience.

Matt 38:48

I think particularly with something like this that is designed to hang together as a journey, not just as three separate, I mean it work as three separate tracks as well, but you know, something like this, or particularly some of the other um fresh grass stuff like Blue Heron Suite, Sarah Jurose's record, or just sitting and being taken on a journey for however long that lasts, you know, is um I think it's something that I've become much more aware that I crave in recent years.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Yeah, absolutely.

Matt 39:16

Well, it's a glorious journey, um, and it's been really fun chatting about the journey you went on to put it together. Um, thanks so much. I've really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you listening to it so intently, and uh yeah, always great to see you.