Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Recording a Full-Length CD

So it's time to make an official announcement: three weeks ago, I started work on my first full-length album! No idea yet on a release date, but for the last week I've spent intense time rehearsing and recording (in the last three days, two eight-hour sessions recording). I'm blessed to be surrounded by fantastic musicians, some of whom have yet to get in the studio. But here are the three who have worked on the project thus far:

Anna Draper and I met two years ago when she was looking for people to accompany her on fiddle at Mennofolk; someone recommended me and her friend Bethany (who played cello on the First Verse EP) knew me, so she emailed asking if I'd play guitar for the festival. Bluegrass guitar. One, I'm generally not someone you'd hire solely on guitar--I'm just not a great guitarist--and two, I'd never played bluegrass before. But when I told her she didn't seem to think that was a problem. So few weeks later I faked my way through our set and afterwards about fell over in laughter when I heard that someone had complimented my guitar playing. Since then Anna's played with me sporadically on my own music. And though we both live in Ann Arbor, we ran into each other in Chicago three weekends ago (she was at the Suzuki Institute's camp) on my spontaneous road trip.

Dan Dault is capable of playing fiddle--on upright bass. On what is sure to be the hidden track, you'll be able to hear him do just that. He also plays every instrument known to man (ok, that's an exaggeration, but in a couple of weeks he'll be moving to Minnesota to be a school orchestra director so he has a handle on most orchestral instruments and then some). I think I first met him when he was dating one of the other actresses/managing directors of the student theatre company I ran at the time, but it was a long time before I saw him again. I don't actually remember how we got to be friends though--we have a lot of friends in common, but maybe it had to do with playing together last summer.

Brad Elliott had posted a notice on Myspace that he was looking for musicians to play with, and when I listened to his clips I thought, "He's really good." So I contacted him and two weeks later we were rehearsing with Dan. Look for lots of brushes and a jazz piano trio feel on "Unyielding" and "Waiting to Dance." And since everyone in my life is connected somehow, when I was telling Carolyn, a fellow swing dancer, about recording and the drummer I'd found, she exclaimed, "Is his name Brad Elliott?" At my response, much squealing followed--they'd gone to high school together.

Tonight Ricke (the sound engineer--and how he came to be so is a story I'll have to tell later) was listening to Anna play and whispered, "She's incredible!" My thought about all of them, exactly.

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