Seven years ago this week @vanessa_peters and I met up with the Danish folk group The Sentimentals to record an album together in a beautiful farmhouse in the lush, verdant Danish countryside.
The album was created improvisationally with minimum production. Vanessa would show the band a song, the band would jam on it for 20 minutes or so to nail down the structure and feel, then we’d record two or three takes before moving on to the next song. Perfection was eschewed in favor of spontaneity: performances were ad-hoc, mic bleed was a feature not a bug, and accidents were merely proof that humans had made these sounds.
The result, “Vanessa Peters with The Sentimentals,” was the most organic, free-flowing, and spacious album I’ve ever made. The impromptu photo shoot was pretty epic as well. Thanks @bittenherbst for the extra photography help (photos #2 & #3)!