Performed by Mike Walker, Terrill Mast & Daniel Lee
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Mike Walker - guitar, zhong ruan, melodica, vocals
Daniel Lee - cello, guitar, vocals
Terrill Mast - piano
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Artwork - Mike Walker
Mixed & Mastered by Seth Engel
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Recorded in Lakeview, Edgewater, Humboldt Park, McCormick Place and Oak Park, Chicago
Terrill's piano parts recorded in Herndon Virginia
PBI & Old Timer co-written with Daniel Lee in 2014
Dedicated to Ann Lester and Yu Zhong
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This album was actually made over a long period of time in between recording sessions for both the Drawing in Pen and Vein Matter projects. Both of those albums were very electronic and centered around using a laptop to cut up and manipulate samples. It’s a fun way of creating music, but sometimes I would get burnt out on all the time spent hunched over a laptop making microscopic edits on two second long chopped samples. And when that would happen, I had this acoustic project that I could turn to that would satisfy my need for a simpler, more ”back to my roots” way of songwriting.
The acoustic guitar has always been my weapon of choice when it comes to the craft of songwriting. When I look back at how I started writing songs, it was the act of sitting down with an acoustic guitar and finding interesting chord changes to sing over. That’s what I was doing in my bedroom at age 17 and for a few years, that was all I needed. But as I got older and learned more about the art of recording, I got caught up in all the different methods of production one could utilize in order to create a more unique piece of music. The acoustic guitar was still there, but I guess I got swept away by the excitement of finding new ways to create a song.
But after about seven years of doing that, I started to contemplate a few questions, like “In my search for new recording techniques, have I lost something?” or “Have my muscles for writing a great song started to atrophy?” “Can I even write a great song??” Although I still loved manipulating samples, making loops and creating electronic soundscapes, I started to see all of these new techniques I had learned as sort of getting in the way of the true art of songwriting. Because really, at the end of the day, all a great song is about is beautiful chords / moving music, a great vocal performance with a strong melody and lyrics that connect with the listener. Millions of people didn’t connect with The Beatles’ song “Yesterday” for its production techniques, they connected with it because the vocal melody is gorgeous and the lyrics are simple and effective in their emotional appeal.
So for this acoustic project, I set myself a few hard rules… No click track, no percussion, no electronics and most importantly of all, no MIDI instruments or digital effects of any kind. I was also listening to albums like Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Jessica Pratt’s On Your Own Love Again and Elliot Smith’s first two solo albums. Those albums admittedly had a big impact on me as well during the making of this album. After recording the first song “Ponyboy” I really got into the groove and started to get excited about creating an entire album of acoustic tracks. I was hoping to make a collection of songs that showed that even with all the production tricks completely stripped away, or perhaps due to the absence of all that production jiggery pokery, I was able to create songs that connected with the listener on a raw emotional level. Just like the artists I mentioned above… I was sort of trying to put my songwriting skills to the ultimate test.
It was also sort of a melancholic and reflective time in my life. Looking back now, I can clearly see that I was in some sort of funk and although I was satisfied with some aspects of my life, I was very unhappy in others. I had been gaining a lot of weight, was very unhealthy and smoking tons of pot constantly every day. I had hit a point where I felt like the best years of my life were behind me. Something that, looking back years later, I can see was definitely not true, but it doesn’t change how I felt when I was going through it. Lots of my friends had moved out of Chicago and Cheer and I had moved very north to a town called Edgewater which is a nice place but can feel a bit removed from the more lively parts of the city. I also had this job where I worked from 3:30AM until 9:30AM and when I was getting off work was when 99% of the population was starting work. So I had the whole day to myself but couldn’t really spend time with anyone so I would just wander around Chicago aimlessly and smoke massive joints. Weed was still illegal in Chicago back then, so I had to sneak around to get high. I just felt sort of listless and alienated from almost everyone around me.
But one light in the darkness was recording these songs with a few dear friends. At first I thought that I should be the only performer on the album, so as to get those feelings of deep isolation across more effectively. But after getting about 70% of the way through the recording process I decided that I’d collaborate with two people. Daniel Lee and Terrill Mast. Since Terrill was no longer living in Chicago, I just emailed him some tracks that I thought could use some piano. I sent three songs off to Terrill and I think the piano layers he sent back are some of the most beautiful performances he's ever done on a Nature's Neighbor album.
Then there was Dan. We reconnected in a big way on this album. He was the first person that I really collaborated with when I moved to Chicago and since the first day we met we have had this indescribable chemistry. Dan played a massive roll in the first NN album You Me and the People and when we play guitar together our parts seem to mesh together perfectly to form this whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Back in 2014, when Dan moved back to Chicago, he had visited me in River City a few times to demo out some songs on acoustic guitar in hopes to record them in some new project. We wrote some great stuff together but ultimately didn’t end up recording final versions for any album for one reason or another. Thinking now was the time do finally get those songs down, I texted him asking if he’d be down to record some of those tracks for the album and he said yes. “PBI” and “Old Timer” came out of the sessions I did with Dan that year. Visiting his home in Oak Park we sat down and played acoustic guitars just as we had back when we lived together in 2010 and 2011. It was a great moment.
At the end of it I came out with 9 acoustic tracks that I was very satisfied with. The album felt like the most personal and raw piece of music that I had ever made up to that point and I thought that, for the most part, it showed that I was able to reach the goal I set out to achieve, that of writing great songs with an emotional power and resonance to them without any of the trappings of modern recording technology. Simple songs for a very complex time.
After struggling to come up with a fitting album title, I decided on “Jade” which was inspired by a very beautiful jade necklace Cheer had purchased while we were visiting her family in Nanchang. You can see the jade from the necklace on the album cover. I used to wear it around my neck every day for many years. I suppose the name was also meant to evoke the simplicity and beauty of something that you must mine very deeply to acquire. Something pure that was refined slowly over many years, deep within the earth.
