I suppose after living with some of those songs for the better part of a year before even entering a studio to record them, I’ve become a bit confused when it comes to the actual album.  While I’ve had to chance to live and experience the songs for a while now, those songs have only now just begun to breathe for everyone else.  It’s a strange experience.

In the four years since the release of Wolves in the Walls much has changed for Ockham’s Razor.  We’d changed previously, but the loss of Tom Rooney, who played mandolin, banjo, and guitars with us from 2006 until 2011, on top of Dane Dorning and Judd Harris deciding to start a new chapter in their lives by following their hearts and moving to Oregon sort of spelled an end of an era.  It certainly guttered me for a time.

Initially I welcomed some down time.  I went home to England, Scotland, and Ireland and visited family – some I hadn’t seen in twelve years.  Then I started writing again and promptly stopped.  I sort of came upon the worst case of writer’s block that I’ve ever had.  In the meantime I played a few one-off gigs with Culann’s Hounds, traveling down to San Francisco to play St Patrick’s Day with them.  I played a few shows with Ken Larson and Peter Yeates, Kevin McCormick, Stout Pounders, as well as a few other bands and artists, and thoroughly enjoyed them.  It was nice not being the front man for a change.  It was nice playing trad music, traditionally.

But eventually I craved the outlet of creating music ‘my’ way again.  I craved and needed it.  But how do you get started again after taking what was meant to be a year off and ended up being three? Where do you even start picking up the pieces?

It was at the end of 2012 when Danny contacted me about starting a trad group of his own up.  I didn’t reply immediately.  I needed time to think.  I got in my car and drove around Seattle for an hour.  I can’t even remember where I went, but I do know that by the time I’d gotten home I replied to his initial email asking him if he’d like to start Ockham’s Razor back up with me and use this as a jumping off place to start a new line-up.

He replied five minutes later.

You know the rest.  We played some shows in 2013.  We played some festivals and shows in early 2014 and we were really enjoying it.  We started working on new songs to fill out our sets while we reworked some old material.  Somebody suggested recording it.  At first the idea of an EP was bandied about and we started rehearsing earnestly toward that goal.  Then it became an EP with a few extra recorded tracks to release later in the year.  Then someone finally asked, “Why don’t we just record an album?”

Four months and a few days later, Job’s Comforter arrived.

In some ways, I feel like Job’s Comforter is the most complete album in our catalogue.  Every aspect of the record was completely realized and discussed and argued out before we all gave it a thumbs up.  We recorded thirteen songs for the record.  Ten of them made the cut to the album, one was offered as an incentive to pre-order the album, and the other two…  I’m sure they’ll get to your ears one way or another.  Maybe not.  There are still tracks that were recorded for Wolves and Bedlam that only very close friends have heard.  A few of them still ask me when they’ll ever get to hear the finished versions.

All in all I’m very proud of our record.  It was the easiest record I’ve ever made.  It seemed that at the end of every session we were further along to finishing than on any other project I’ve worked on.  We used our time wisely unlike every other time.  We planned.  We schemed.  We drank copious amounts of tea. (Loose leaf, please.  We’re tea snobs.)  In fact, it can safely be said that where whiskey fueled Bedlam and ale fueled Wolves, tea fueled Job.  Pots and pots of the stuff.  There were times when Danny had the jitters from being too over-tea’d.

It was one of the most pleasurable times in my life, musically, so far.  It was so easy, there were times I kept asking myself what were we doing wrong, since I suppose I’d convinced myself that making a record has to hurt.  Now I listen to the songs on Job’s Comforter and I’m so pleased with how they came out.  I hope you are, too.

With that said, I think I’ll end this essay here.  It is my intention that this is merely an introduction to a series of essays about Job’s Comforter, and the ones to follow will cover the song choices and our choices made in the arrangements and choosing the artwork and the general ‘look’ of the album.  I promise I will get to work on them and not start something and not finish.  I just have to remain focused, which at the moment, there’s a little flurry of activity, which keeps distracting me.

I hope you’re all well.  I hope you’re enjoying Job’s Comforter as much as I enjoyed making it.  I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Fabulous Yuletide, Festive Solstice… and wish you all the best of luck for 2015.  It’s going to be a good year.  I can just feel it.