All My Friends is the culmination of four years of us getting to know one another as people and musicians, featuring a mix of pieces we’ve been refining on stage since the five of us started playing together back in 2009, and new material composed in the studio.

The album is a series of vignettes on personal relationships in all their uniqueness and difficult sublimity. Its thirteen pieces showcase our usual core of voices, violin, guitar, hammer dulcimer, bassoon, bass and drums, in addition to an expanded woodwind/brass section, guzheng, no-input mixer, and found objects like wine glasses, corrugated pipes, heating grates, and more.

Credits

Damon Waitkus – voice, guitar, hammer dulcimer, etc.
Emily Packard – violins, psaltery, melodica, etc.
Kate McLoughlin – bassoon, voice, flute
Jason Hoopes – bass, voice
Jordan Glenn – drums, accordion, mallet percussion

Guests:

Art Elliot – church organ
Ivor Holloway – tenor sax
Marielle Jakobsons – waterphone
Darren Johnston – trumpet
Nicci Reisnour – harp, wine glasses
Jonathan Russell – clarinet
Andrew Strain – trombone
Cory Wright – clarinet
Ian Forsythe – no-input mixer
Dave McNally and Neil Hodge – rhodes/drum loop

All songs by Damon Waitkus, except track 12, by Damon Waitkus and Jason Hoopes.

Recorded, mixed, and produced by Damon Waitkus in Oakland and Alameda, CA, April 2009 through January 2013.

Drums and bass on tracks 7 and 8 engineered byThe Norman Conquest.

Track 7 mixed by Damon Waitkus with Myles Boisen.

Mastered by Myles Boisen and Headless Buddha Mastering Lab, Oakland.