Aloft
Aloft
Aloft began as a private legacy project—an effort to make solid recordings of my best compositions while I was still able to play them to my own standards. They're challenging technically; eventually some gremlin like arthritis will make them very hard to play well. I cobbled away at the recordings with no particular deadline in mind, publishing stories and books along the way, until my friends Craig Butterfield and Jesse Jones, amazing musicians, suggested I reach out to their record label. At Adhyâropa, Joe Brent dug the work in progress enough to sign me, and here we are. A project I never intended to share is now out in the world.
The Guitars
I used three of my favorite guitars on this record. Most tracks were recorded with a gorgeous Lowden F35, with a Sinker Redwood top and Tasmanian Blackwood back and sides. The top was hewn from a redwood log that spent decades at a river bottom, seasoning slowly in a low-oxygen environment. "River," as my wife dubbed her, is responsive, rich with overtones and eminently playable.
The tunes "Starwalk" and "Chinook," along with some lead parts on other tunes, were recorded on my first Lowden, an F10 we call Eliot. Eliot is less flashy than River visually, but the combination of spruce top and mahogany back and sides packs a wallop, He's a beautiful guitar for open-string, Celtic style mischief of the type heard on "Chinook."
"The Girl at the Gate" and a few secondary parts were recorded on perhaps the most beautiful guitar I own, a custom mini-jumbo made for me by Rob Bustos of Paragon Guitars, in North Vancouver. Rob and I collaborated on all aspects of the design, right down to the mother of pearl lotus flower inlay in the fretboard and the little abalone ginkgo on the rear heel cap. The top is Carpathian spruce; the back and sides are Malaysian Blackwood. "Ginkgo" is a cathedral, sonically, with immense natural reverb and an assertive voice. The sound hole cut into her shoulder allows me to hear her as if I'm sitting right out front, or perhaps inside. An amazing instrument!
Tunings
DGDGBD, cut capo on 2 covering strings 2, 3, 4: Still Reckless, Margaret's Waltz
DADGCD: Chinook, One More Surrender, The Girl at the Gate
DGDGBD: Starwalk
DADEAE: Jeunesse oblige
DADGAD: Jock O'Hazeldean, The South Wind
DADGBD: Distant Friends
Recording Rig
My basic setup is a spaced pair of Peluso P28s sent through a Focusrite Saffire preamp to Adobe Audition. On some tracks I put the mics through an ADesigns tube preamp and/or use an ADK large diaphragm condenser mic out front to warm up the midrange. In the digital domain I use very few effects and try to stay as true to the instruments' sound as possible.
Release date 9/26/2025