The Bellows by Jefferson Pitcher

A few years ago, I wrote three songs in a 48 hour frenzy, surprising myself. I sent them to Austin and my friend Nico Protopappas, and they both urged me to keep going. So I did, and somehow with immense help from Austin and support from my family and friends, we spent ten days in a studio where we made the Bellows. My writer friend Ben Jahn helped with the lyrics; the edits that he made were astonishing.

Over the course of ten songs, I reveal an enmeshment and dialogue between human and animal, within the context of the natural world. In the cosmology of The Bellows, we are not transported by cars or boats but are carried by sparrows and cranes. We are reassured by the night’s exhalations. And we are reminded that home is not so much a physical space but a great warm room held within the heart. After many years exploring sound in it’s purest form, outside the context of ‘song,’ The Bellows is music that occupies itself wholly and distinctly, that desires to bring the listener along on a sonic journey, to ferry us down a river in some twilight we have, until now, only dreamed of.

I have long been interested in the notion of home and what that word/concept means. I’ve borrowed and stolen from Wallace Stegner, Jim Harrison, Ben Jahn, Ada Limon, Seamus Heaney, David Abrams’ (Becoming Animal), and others over the years; writers whose work has given image to my imagined wanderings. On The Bellows, which is the first in a trilogy of records, I write about a world where water and other resources are scarce and humans share the role of dominant species with birds, who are both friend and foe. It may all be somewhat oblique in the telling, but I hope that the record can conjure a feeling in the listener, some combination of wonder, nostalgia, curiosity, and hope.

Jefferson Pitcher is a guitarist, singer, and composer whose work has twice been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and has been well reviewed by Pitchfork, God is in the TV, Under the Radar, Prefix, Blurt, Harp and more. His music is available on Standard Recording Co., Digitalis Recordings, Camera Obscura, Tape Drift, Moonpalace , Dutch East India, Words on Music, and Tract Records.

jeffpitcher.com