 "...Masterful playing, superb arrangements and wonderful sounds. To be honest, this is the best headphone-to-oblivion album since Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'. (5/5)"
--Simon Bradley, Guitarist
"When critics use the word ‘mature’ to describe somebody’s music, it’s usually code for ‘old and boring.’ Well, I’m wresting the word back to apply it in its proper sense to Mike Keneally’s ‘Wooden Smoke’: this album is strong, gentle and wise. How many people do you know who can make a CD sound hand-carved? Beautiful."
Thurs January 10, 2002 5:49:38
Hi, everybody who is reading this website! This is Mike Keneally, writing words which you are going to read. The next word I’m going to write which you’re going to read is "plangent." Ready? Plangent.
Now that that crucial bit of business is handled, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that "Wooden Smoke," my most recent album, is available as a single-CD release now. You can purchase it via MooseMart, and it will also begin popping up at retail. It will have a pretty light presence at retail at first, and then as our vast promotional machine kicks into gear you’ll hopefully notice the retail presence becoming more ubiquitous. We have a lot of phone calls to make and plans to plan, and we’re focused on doing the right thing by this album. We’ve noted the response that "Wooden Smoke" has been getting from all of you and we’re absolutely blown away. This album is striking a chord and it feels like the time is right for it. Thank you all for validating our belief that this was the right album to make.
Happy new year and keep moving forward. Thank you for everything!
Love,
Mike K.
Wood Chips
(Two minutes and twelve seconds from "Wooden Smoke") |
Order Wooden Smoke
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©2001 Exowax Recordings, Spen Music, BMI
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Hi! I’m thinking that it’s time to put out a new album. It’s called "Wooden Smoke," and it’s not much like anything I’ve done before. It’s primarily acoustic. At the end of 2000 I started playing a whole lot of acoustic guitar, sitting on the floor in the living room. The sound of the instrument and the physical sensation of playing it formed the bedrock of "Wooden Smoke" (thanks again to Taylor Guitars for making instruments which pull so much music out of a person). It’s not your typical "acoustic album" though – there’s a lot of interesting sounds happening, generated in some fairly unorthodox ways, which will make more sense to discuss after you’ve heard the stuff. There are elaborate vocal arrangements on a number of songs, but the album is about half instrumental. The music is a little hard to describe. It’s mysterious, but intimate and inviting. It has a kind of plot, but you can’t figure it out. It feels really warm, and I love listening to it – I hope you enjoy it too.
We worked again at Signature Sound, with the brilliant Mike Harris behind the board. Recording began in October 2000 and continued on and off until about a week ago, interrupted frequently by various touring activities and such, and also by blink 182 blocking out Signature for two months solid in the middle of it all. It’s a solo Keneally album rather than a BFD release, although it is graced by the appearances of several band members (Rick, Tricia and Bryan) on a few of the songs. I played most of the instruments myself but multi-instrumentalist Marcelo Radulovich and percussionist Nathan Hubbard, members of the Trummerflora Collective, were crucial collaborators on several of the songs. Also making important contributions were saxophonist Lee Elderton, drummer Chris G and Matt Resnicoff, who sang on three tracks and provided intense amounts of creative assistance in the studio.
Here’s the songs:
Hello
Bags
Haugseth
2001
New England
Nanny-Ass Crow
Dee ‘n’ A
Boom
5 Legs
Father’s Day
Pantomime
Machupicchu
Wooden Smoke
Thanksgiving
For those of you who’ve had trouble digesting my standard 70-minute-plus CDs in the past, this is the Keneally album for you. I went into this project wanting to make a 50-minute CD, and I’ve done it! Are you proud of me? I’m thrilled to have finally made an album which feels complete, but which you don’t have to struggle to work into your schedule. I got to the point with this one.
 We’re making available a special edition of the album featuring a second disc called "Wooden Smoke Asleep." It contains more songs, improvs, experimental pieces, doodad-y excerpts and alternate versions from the "Wooden Smoke" sessions. The alternate versions, sometimes barely more than solo acoustic guitar, are stripped-down and elemental in comparison to the main album versions – a lot like what the songs sounded like when I wrote them on my living room floor. "Asleep" has also got some startlingly wonderful sax soloing from Lee Elderton and nice dual acoustic improvs from Rick Musallam and I. All these elements are woven together in stream-of-consciousness fashion resulting in a very different listening experience from "Wooden Smoke" itself. I hope you’ll check it out. The first 2000 of the special editions will be signed and numbered by me.
You can order the "Wooden Smoke" Special Edition from MooseMart now. The single-CD standard version of "Wooden Smoke" will be released on January 15, 2002.
Thanks for reading all of this, and I sure hope you enjoy the albums. Take care!! Smile! Feed that cat!
Your buddy,
Mike K.
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