Nels Andrews - Off Track Betting (2008)

Andrews grew up on the beaches, deserts, and in the heartland of America. He met characters at the carnivals where he worked in his teens, heard Greg Brown tell stories when he hitch-hiked to Ketchikan, Alaska to work in the fisheries after college, and drank Black Velvet in the back of custom lowriders and El Caminos when he lived in the deserts of New Mexico. Not one to sit idly by, Andrews has immersed himself as a cabinet-maker, tree planter in South Dakota, rock band leader, sheep poacher and solitary seeker surrounded by well armed, amphetamine fueled neighbors with dogs on long chains, children of hippies whose parents' gurus had all left town, and all kinds of small town drunks and prophets. All of these folks have colored his world view. For his critically acclaimed 2005 debut Sunday Shoes, Andrews embraced those experiences and harnessed the sounds of the desert. Here on Off Track Betting, he remains firmly rooted in the Americana tradition while expanding those boundaries to explore the spaces between the textures and rhythms of New York City - a place he now calls home. A city seen from the abandoned piers and rooftops replaces the familiar mesas and sagebrush oceans of New Mexico. For Off Track Betting, Andrews along with producer Todd Sickafoose (Ani DiFranco, Erin McKeown, Andrew Bird) assembled a band that includes Sickafoose on bass, guitarist Adam Levy (Norah Jones, Amos Lee), keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen (Wilco), vocalists Ana Egge and AJ Roach, and a talented crop of supporting musicians. The new songs were recorded at Trout Studios in Brooklyn. "Sonically, I learned to push the edges in the exploration of acoustic music with Todd Sickafoose says Andrews. He had the vision to help me turn these sketches and storylines into cinematic shorts while keeping the desert places and cityscapes in the sounds. We recorded most of the tracks live to 2 tape. Having the musicians all in one room kept a real organic nature to the record. A Leslie speaker spun the electronic Farfisa and ARP sounds around the room in such a way that you could feel them buzzing and hovering like June bugs and zeppelins. We sculpted out all the parts in real time, often using the first or second take." Although the vistas have changed over the years, Andrews found he could still draw on the inspiration of those familiar mesa s, and infuse Off Track Betting with the essence of his new life in New York City. Andrews says We strayed from the traditional folk sound, moving into newer soundscapes to incorporate harp, klezmer banjos, sampled electronics, toy pianos and a wine glass orchestra. Looking in from outside, we were able to make a new place from the visions and imaginings a person may get when seeing somewhere from far away, maybe what you hope it will look like, when you get there.