Andrews deftly weaves masterful lyrics with sing-song melodies and sweet harmonies that make you want to take notice - Parade Magazine Where has this guy been hiding? In the library maybe. - Folk Alley Deft storytelling with a warmth of tone and gentleness of pace… Like finding a seashell at the back of a dusty cupboard, putting it to your ear and hearing the ocean. - Folk Radio UK Folk maestro Nels Andrews...reflects on finding new surprises in himself and the ones that he loves.- PopMatters There is a plaintive poignancy to the delivery of Nels Andrews’ words. Each song tempered with pensive thought and purpose. His stories like a small boat in the breaking waves, but it always comes out above the tide in the end. Beautiful stuff. - Red Line Roots You can’t help but marvel at the arrangements and the layers of sound as well as Andrews’ ability as a lyricist. - Americana Highways Nels Andrews’ new LP Pigeon & The Crow, produced by traditional Irish flutist Nuala Kennedy (Gerry O’Conner, Will Oldham), is a songwriter’s record--in it, Andrews gracefully weaves the morning fog, redwoods, and his beloved Santa Cruz oceanside. The album brims with literary wordplay, mixed with some sway, some shimmer, and some sand between your toes. The bones of the album, Andrews' fourth studio endeavor, were joined during a three-day live tracking session at Whispering Pines Studio in Los Angeles. The studio was originally built for Sam Cooke in the 60s, turned into a funk/soul palace in the 70s, abandoned when the owner found religion in the 80s, and later rehabilitated by indie rock outfit Lord Huron. While recording, Andrews slept on the tracking room floor every night and dreamt in technicolor born of the vibes steeped into that well-worn musical space. Andrews, along with Kennedy, Sebastian Steinberg (Iron and Wine, Fiona Apple, Soul Coughing) on bass, and Quinn on drums/percussion (T-Bone Burnett, Eastmountainsouth), breathed life into the songs together in that one room. The album boasts a mix of traditional players from Kennedy’s past to some of Andrews’ newest old friends like Stelth Ulvang of The Lumineers, as well as some older old friends and collaborators from New York, including guest appearances by fellow songsmiths Anaïs Mitchell, AJ Roach, and Anthony Da Costa. The result is 10 ethereal yet substantial tracks that assess life “mid-game,” a time that is less straightforward than youth imagined, where our strategies and gambits are yet unresolved—stories from a place past innocence but perhaps still before wisdom. These are songs written about that place: an actress in her sunset, a husband folding now-soft wedding sheets, a shipwrecked Scottish fisherman asking himself life's tough questions as he fights to survive a night floating in the frosty north Atlantic, a father meditating on love and selfishness, and the ghosts of former relationships. From cover to cover, Pigeon & The Crow contains wistful resolve, a steady backbone, and a late afternoon light reflected off the sea. Andrews' work, which reflects his love affair with the landscape of his home, enchants from beginning to end. Pigeon & The Crow Track List: 1. Scrimshaw 4:06 2. Memory Compass 3:16 3. Pigeon & The Crow 6:30 4. Holy Water 3:36 5. Eastern Poison Oak 3:43 6. South of San Gregorio 2:40 7. Table By The Kitchen 3:15 8. Lions Jaws 4:40 9. Welterweight 4:02 10. Embassy To The Airport 3:30 Bonus Track: Candidate’s Handshake 4:15 Song Notes Scrimshaw This song is about being steady and constant in a long term relationship, as the verses jump though seemingly scattered vignettes, a nod to the Bollywood movies and music I’ve grown to love. Personally for me it’s about shedding my vices, and finding new surprises in myself and the in the ones I love, holding strong like the cypress, that weather so gracefully on the cliffs of California’s central coast. Memory Compass A song about the time in our lives when we all start retracing the decisions we made in our youth, and we hear from the ghosts of all our past relationships (thanks facebook). Written with Emmanuel Paquette, a flamenco guitarist from the Azores (archipelligo located between Portugal and Morocco), who brings his hypnotic nylon string guitar to the recording as well. Pigeon & The Crow The title track of the album is a modern supernatural ballad I wrote with my dearest traveling buddy, and one of my favorite living songwriters, AJ Roach. It’s a speculative fictionalization of a shape-shape-shifting love story between a human girl and a crow. Based on the true story I saw in the news about a girl who fed crows as a child, and how her mom collected and saved all the shiny trinkets and treasures the crows brought her in return. I collaborated with local Santa Cruz based illustrator (and surf buddy) Mike Bencze who turned the story into a printed graphic novella with added the vinyl flexi disc recording. It’s a self contained little world you can step into by putting on the record and entering Mike’s imaginatively rendered version of California’s central coast. The folk equivalent of putting on the Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon at the same time. Actually, I guess it’s really more like watching the Wizard of Oz and listening to the Wizard of Oz at the time. Either way it’s a good time. Holy Water I was folding the now-soft sheets my wife and I received for our wedding, A song about the middle of a love story. Eastern Poison Oak When I was in my twenties, I worked in an Alaskan cannery beside a particularly cantankerous guy named Alvin who kept his old guitar (when it wasn’t in the pawn shop) along with a stack of vinyl singles he’d recorded as a young man and had been hauling around for a few decades, in a trunk under his bunk in our dorm. He seemed deadset on absolving any quixotic notions the young Nels harbored about wanting to write my own songs someday. I think about him all the time. “Eastern poison oak” headed a list of synonyms for daydreaming, according to a questionable online thesaurus. South of San Gregorio modern surfing love story set on the undeveloped section of highway 1 north of Santa Cruz. Table By The Kitchen My song about FOMO (fear of missing out), as we’re bombarded with the certainty that everyone else’s perfectly curated life have all the things we need. Lions Jaws My wife’s uncle did the lion and tiger act in the Japanese circus (and was the only Jewish lion trainer in history at the time). He’s who you definitely gravitate towards at family gatherings if you want to get the good stories .. we’d often marvel at the overlaps in our seemingly different areas of show business. Welterweight A song about an actress at mid career Embassy To The Airport a song inspired by someone I met at a house concert at an intentional community on Scoraig, an island off the coast of Scotland, a fisherman who’d fallen off his boat, and survived a night in the cold Atlantic waters. It’s about the conversations you have with yourself in trying times . (bonus ) Candidate’s Handshake Ruminations on the end of youth / adolescence, written late one night mid- summer on a Swedish island, when midnight sun made it seem like the day wouldn’t ever end. Album Notes Nels Andrews Vocals & Guitar Nuala Kennedy Flute, Keys & Vocals Sebastian Steinberg Bass Quinn Drums/ Percussion Pete Harvey Cello Shane Cook Violin Jonathan Goldberger Electric Guitar, Loops Emmanuel Paquete Nylon String Guitar Marla Fibish Mandolin Chris Wabuch Steel Drums Stelth Ulvang Kora, Accordian, Harmonium, Upright Piano Anais Mitchell Vocals Anthony Da Costa Vocals A.J. Roach Vocals ll songs by Nels Andrews BMI except “Pigeon & the Crow , “Welterweight” co-written by AJ Roach BMI “Memory Compass” co-written by Emmanuel Paquette, Recorded by Kris Poulin at Whispering Pines Studio Los Angeles, Ca, Mixed by Kris Poulin, Additional Recording by Charlie Cohen at the Flavor Station, La Selva Beach, Ca, and Johnathan Goldberger at Down Home Audio Lab in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY, John Doyle’s in Dublin, and various remote global locations! Mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering, Photographs by Bradley Cox, Giant Eye Photography. Design by Mark Shepherd, mmmshepherd.com. Thanks to the Lord Huron folks for their clubhouse/studio, Nuala for being a magic catalyst, Kris for helping it sound just like we dreamed, all the musicians who lent their instruments & voices, and my wife Julia for whispering all the best words into my ear. This album is dedicated to the memory of John Davy, who gave me my first ever review, paddled across cold Scottish water to come to the shows, and brought me out to his Scoraig isle homestead, where two songs on this record were born. .