During our hiatus after the Miles From Our Home tour, we released a collection of songs, which hadn't found a home on our previous releases, titled Rarities, B-Sides and Slow Sad Waltzes, which in turn led to a tour to promote it, which birthed a live document called Waltz Across America.

It was during this tour that we began work on a new set of songs, which became Open. Our touring band was the same seven-piece that had been playing together for over two years, since the Miles release: the four of us, the never-leave-home-without-him Jeff Bird, Linford Detweiler on keyboards and Karin Bergquist on guitar and backup vocals. Linford and Karin are the core of Cincinnatti's Over The Rhine, who took the opening act slot for many of our shows.

After a hundred or so live performances this was a self-oiling machine into which we injected two or three new songs per month, evolved them on stage and recorded them during the brief breaks in touring. We allowed one or two days in the studio, recording live, with the aim of capturing the songs as songs, rather than parts of songs to be pieced together later. This process was well-suited to the music as a lot of the songs are swirling, breathing things which rely on interplay of the elements, or as it's called in the industry, jam. Dark Hole Again is a good example of this organic feel, where the band gets to stretch out and have fun. We like to go after the low-hanging fruit first, and this was the ripest.

Daryl Smith engineered most of the Open sessions - his skills and intimate knowledge of the gear helped us get and stay comfortable in his studio, Chemical Sound, which he basically built from the ground up.

Chemical is a funky little operation tucked in an alleyway behind a strip joint in downtown Toronto. We discovered it when we were asked to contribute a song to the Gram Parsons tribute album. We had such a smooth experience recording and mixing 'Ooh Las Vegas' that we decided to try it out again.

Environment can play a big part in recording and if you can relax in it, the music benefits. We've recorded in some pretty sterile studios in the past so we tend to search out more homey spots far from the corporate gabillion-dollar-an-hour-advertising-jingle-oriented-but-we-still-do-rock-records places. The normal recording process is to book a few weeks and try to nail down your songs in that time period. Going back later to get a better version of a song is a drag and often you make compromises to avoid that (the fix-it-in-the-mix syndrome). A lot of time is given to 'getting a sound', usually because the natural sound has been baffled and acoustic-tiled out of the building. Engineers will often take days just to get a drum sound, so that by the time you're ready to record the pressure is built in to get the perfect version of a tune down on tape.

At Chemical, we were able to set up in a couple of hours, get down to business, and be done by the end of the day. The next time, we took the seven-piece band to do a version of 'Highway Kind' for the Townes Van Zandt tribute CD. It worked perfectly for the full band set-up and we decided to record our next album there.

The Waltz Across America tour lasted about nine months, with lots of breaks in the schedule, which is when one of two things happened: Mike escaped to his rented hide-a-way Northeast of Toronto to work on songs or, alternately, we ended up in the studio. We would record two or three songs at most, having the opportunity to redo them at later sessions if necessary. This open-ended approach took away the usual pressures of making a record that in the end it didn't feel like we had really finished. It wasn't until we sat down and listened to all the songs together that we felt it was there.

Two of the songs were recorded at Peter Moore's home studio. Peter has been part of our recorded efforts since the band's beginning, contributing his producing, engineering, mixing and mastering skills. The songs which were chosen for his studio needed a greater deal of technical control and he's our first choice for that. Peter also mixed the record (except for two songs) and mastered the CD.

Eventually we recorded about fifteen songs in this manner and then sat down to the daunting task of editing and sequencing the tracks so that they formed an enticing and comprehensible album. We finally settled on a sequence (with some outside help) that emphasized the cyclical theme of the music and lyrics. Starting at the nadir, with the churning feedback leading into the uncompromisingly dark I Did It All For You and then winding through a few very bleak numbers (Dragging Hooks, Bread and Wine, Upon Still Waters and Dark Hole Again) until finally coming up for air with the soothing sound of surf leading into the peaceful Thousand Year Prayer. From that point onward the mood begins to brighten and head towards the glimmer of hope represented by the closing number "Close My Eyes"….only to fall back into confusion and perhaps dissolution with the reprise of the opening feedback.

Open is a dark album, to say the least...at this point does anyone expect anything else...?

Track by Track analysis/discussion of Open with music journalist Alan Smithy:



1) Open begins with a gripping Hendrixian feedback guitar grind that continues in the background through "I Did It All For You." The gently melodic tune is, in Michael's words, "a song about murder," with the homicides acting as a metaphor for the extremes of evil and as the representation of the desperation that engulfs some people's lives.

2) The next tune is the equally poignant "Dragging Hooks", a number introduced by a two-and-a-half-minute jam reminiscent of Miles Davis' jazz-rock fusion. Margo sings at a whisper about loss and the act of breaking free. The tune is the third part of a river trilogy the band has recorded (the first part is "River Waltz" on Rarities; the second part is "Bea's Song" on Lay It Down). "I wrote this a long time ago," Michael says. "The river is the ultimate image for life. The first part of the trilogy is about the river's beauty and it goes downhill from there to part three where they're dragging the river for bodies."

3) "Bread and Wine," a mid-tempo rocker, follows. It's got a great bass line and the startling lyric: "The one that I'm with is not the one that I'm dreaming of." Bluntly, says Michael, it's "your standard mid-life crisis adultery song." He notes the religious images: "I guess that's the guilt brought on by my Catholic upbringing. I can't even write about these types of things without feeling like I've sinned."

4) "Bread and Wine" is complemented by the calming "Upon Still Waters" a number about a couple that is having a difficult time communicating. Bassist Alan Alton brought the bass line to a session and the rest of the band developed the song around it. Michael says, "It's the first time that we've written in that manner. Starting with the bass line definitely brought a whole different focus to the song."

5) The next tune is the intense, anguished, down-on-your-luck "Dark Hole Again". It's about the depths, Michael says, "of finding yourself at the bottom of a pit on all levels - relationships, career, job." It's also a dynamic song the expanded group nailed on the first take. "It's the centerpiece number for the whole band," says Michael. "It sums up what the seven-piece Cowboy Junkies can do. We are all very proud of our performances on that one."

6) At the beginning of "1000 Year Prayer," a quiet tune of thanksgiving, the soothing sound of surf is introduced into the sound mix and the dark tone of the album begins to lift. It's a song to make you stop and contemplate. There's an environmental element to the song, with a lamentation on the destruction of the beauty in North America, but quickly the lyrics turn personal and reflective of the simple beauty that can be found in one's own life.

7) An uptempo rocker with a turbulent electric mandolin solo (courtesy of Jeff Bird), "I'm So Open" offers hope into the picture. "This song sums up the album," says Michael. "The persona of the song is reflecting on the ideas of hitting the age in your life where you're halfway between childhood and death. You can either try and hold on to what has passed, your youth, or you can open yourself up to your present and future with all of those exciting and terrifying mysteries still to unfold ". Margo notes that this is the song that most spoke to her: "Mike seems to write songs that so perfectly express where I'm at," she says. "It freaks me out. It explains how I feel at this point in my life. It's become my song. When I sing it, it makes me feel so sad but at the end relieved - the way you feel after a good cry."

8) "Small Swift Birds" is a poetic beauty. The last verse includes the lines:

"I have heard about the lives of small swift birds.
They dazzle with their colour and their deftness through the air.
Just a simple glimpse will keep you simply standing there.
Legendary journeys made on fragile hollow wings.
The night skies rich with whistling each and every spring.
And then there's the day we look for them and can't find them anywhere."

Michael notes that the dazzling birds represent the fleeting aspects of life. "This song goes to heart of the album's theme. It's all about learning how to appreciate what you have, while you have it."

9) The slow and peaceful "Beneath the Gate" is a song about searching for and finding one's dreams. "It's probably the most personal song on the album. I think Margo and Karin's harmonies are beautiful," says Michael.

10) The lyrical finale, "Close My Eyes," represents the revelation of Open. Michael says, "It's about getting to the point where you feel that the only solution to the turmoil in your life is to turn your back and walk away and then coming to the realization that there are reasons to stay all around you. It's those sorts of moments that make you want to bow your head and close your eyes."

text by Alan Anton