Cassette
Label: Full Spectrum
Full Spectrum Records is pleased to present the FINAL release from the Andrew Weathers Ensemble. After 10 years and 5 albums, this is the project’s final capstone: 4 tracks, just under 41 minutes in running time.
All of the AWE hallmarks are on display – the sweeping arrangements, friscalating vibes and layered vocal treatments. His friends and collaborators all feature heavily, too. This is prime Ensemble territory, in every sense.
Weathers conceived most of these songs in his head while driving long stretches of empty road in West Texas, a bleak and often bizarre region that he has come to regard as “home” in the years since the first Ensemble recordings were released via Sleep On The Floor [way back in 2011]. Whenever he’d arrive at a destination, he’d take a moment to frantically write down whatever musical figure had been caught up in his brain and start to work out the parts.
It is perhaps fitting that he wrote more lyrics for this release than in the past, where he might have preferred to mine old folk songs or the IWW's Little Red Songbook. The rolling, arid desert of his newfound home has proven a fitting canvas for what he terms a “Deep Map of Self-psychogeography,” blending imaginary and real landscapes into an evocative whole that is at once both welcoming and strangely alien. The end result is one of Weathers’ most personal musical statements to date.
We hate to see this project go, but we know that it’s all in the service of illuminating new sonic terrain and nursing a spark for previously uncharted collaborations. So, join us in raising a glass to one hell of a run.