There Are Always Second Chances in the Mountains is the second Lake Mary release to grace the Planted discography, and we couldn't be happier to share this wonderful package with you. On a purple tint cassette with vinyl-transfer labels on both sides, a Risograph-printed booklet, all tucked away in a box made of salvaged cedar wood, this music finds a comfortable home for its rustic, simple beauty. Prymek is known for his elegant fusion of folk and drone stylings, and that marriage is at its most fully realized and fleshed out of all his efforts thus far here, weaving scratchy, patchy static with warm undertones, and situating these moments within larger structures built from gentle passages of strings -- guitar, banjo, and cello. We don't mind saying that it's absolutely gorgeous, and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it together.
These were again dubbed with the help of our buddy Joey Wiley, so thanks are due to him (among many others) as well! With everything that goes into this package, this time we're asking for a little more, hope that's ok! We've got a streaming sample featuring excerpts from both sides of the tape, and also a little Q&A with Chaz Prymek further down below if you're curious! We'll also be taking these around to Wax Trax, Twist & Shout, Mutiny Info Café and Ironwood if you're around the Denver area and would like to save on postage. Thanks for visiting!
• Edition of 100
• Tapes ship 6/16/2014
Tell me about the process for making the cedar boxes for the tape. Why did you want to do that?
Chaz Prymek: I wanted to do it first of all because I felt really proud of the piece of work that's going into it, and I wanted to make it a little bit extra special. Like more of a piece of art — thinking about music as more of art lately, rather than like a commodity. Me and my buddy Phil went and collected a bunch of old salvaged wood from around the neighborhood, and he's a carpenter by trade, so he taught me how to cut things into certain shapes and sizes. We brainstormed over a beer and pasta. And then it turned out pretty good.
Tell me the story of the album title for this one.
When I started writing this album... it was kind of a break-up record. I was in this long relationship before I moved to Colorado. And that relationship ceased to exist, and then writing this was therapy when I moved to Colorado. I moved up to the mountains, and I was kind of like re-discovering myself, so then all the songs started to change, and it just fit.
The last album you did for us didn't have a title. But this one does. So is there something different about the music that made you want to give it a title?
Yeah, I feel like this was my most cohesive piece of work yet, and in that sense it's special. And what it means to me was moving to the mountains near Denver, and re-discovering who I was as a person on my own, which is a huge thing for me. And now I feel very full and very much alive. So I felt like the title was very appropriate when I heard it from my little sister who kept referring to it. She's two years younger than me. She said it a few years ago. We were going up to Lake Mary, and we were talking about something, and that's what she said and I've held onto that phrase ever since.
You've been kind of moving around a lot, and even since you moved to Colorado, you've still been getting odd jobs, spending time outside of Colorado. You've played a few shows in Salt Lake City... so you're always kind of moving. Is there somewhere that you feel like is home? Where is your "home?"
I feel like I'm most at home when I'm just next to a lake up high in the mountains. And it's just calm and quiet... usually me and my dog, or good friends along for the ride. I think that's the most I feel at home.
You played with a couple of other musicians on this record. Can you tell me about how you came upon these people that played on your new music?
On a few tracks there's cello, one is Genevieve Smith and she's this amazing cellist out of Salt Lake City. We both played in this band called Bramble. One day I was recording with James Miska (who played second banjo on that same song), and we called up Genevieve, and she came over and just killed it, came up with all her own things. It took maybe an hour for her to listen, learn and record all of it. It was awesome. And then the other cellist is Jess Webb, who is in the Ranch Family Band, and also my roommate, and just a gem of a person. She plays cello for me live. And that was our fist time working together. She needed a new project, and I needed a cellist, so we made it work.
What's the best thing in the world?
Probably my dog.
