Stonehall Sessions

Hey Guys, Riley here.

Episode 27 is upon us and it marks many firsts for the podcast. Most noticeably is the absence of my cohost Adam. He is stepping away from the podcast for some time to concentrate on other projects. So! For at least the next month or so it is just going to be you and me, friend.

But it is also the first time on the podcast that I’ve brought on a friend of mine to interview. This is not to say that each and every person we’ve had on the podcast before are not now friends of the show, but this is the first time I’ve brought on someone I knew outside of the show. Up until now I’ve very deliberately tried to book people I wasn’t familiar with for two reasons.

1) I knew that only bringing on friends would be detrimental to developing my interviewing skills. I think I can say with some certainty that had I only interviewed people I was familiar with, I wouldn’t have had the skills to talk to Steve Hackett, and that is saying something considering how wide eyed i sound during that interview regardless.

and 2), and perhaps more importantly, if I had relied on just bringing on friends when we started this up, I think the podcast would’ve stopped when I ran out friends to talk to. The booking and organizing podcast interviews with bands, managers, PR people and the like is an acquired skill that I had absolutely zero talent in before the podcast started.

But this also brings us to a few other firsts, one being that this is the first time I’ve had over a months worth of interviews stockpiled, but more importantly the podcast is starting to have enough clout to start bringing people whose albums I adore. Since Stonehall Sessions started, I’ve made a real effort to make sure that each interview we’ve done is with someone a little outside the norm. You can be the judge as to how successful I’ve been, and there are certainly a few weeks where we scrambled to book just anyone, but by and large I stand by these interviews.

But, I’m getting sidetracked here. This interview with Bosveld,and many of the upcoming episodes, are with people whose albums or EPs I’ve loved sincerely and have pored over for hours, listening to in headphones trying to pick out textures and production techniques. As you’re about to hear, Bosveld’s Veldbrand is the sound of heartbreak sustained over 8 tracks. The album itself takes so much out of me emotionally to listen to that it’s become somewhat of a rare treat that I put on if I’m in the mood to listen to the audio equivalent of the opening of the Pixar film Up for 50 minutes. To be able to illicit and maintain that sort of reaction over the course of 45 minutes is a testament to Bosveld’s abilities not only of a songwriter but also a producer and arranger. There are so many moving parts in this album that all coalesce into a disarmingly beautiful album.

However! The mic cable that plagued the live sessions with the autumn stones last week was stupidly used by me again this week when recording, and thus this interview is shorter than normal, simply because you cannot hear many of my meandering questions. My apologies, but now the cable has been trashed so we shouldn’t have this problem again

And! As always, if you can throw us a like on Facebook, a follow on twitter or review on iTunes, I would be eternally grateful. Anyways! Episode 27. Bosveld. You’re going to enjoy it.