RELEASE: the lossless e.p. by The Calculus Affair

NOTES

My wife Laurie Frankel wrote a book called Goodbye for Now. I might have mentioned it before. When it got picked up I thought a nifty cross-promotional thing to do would be write an album to go along with it. Since February was nearby and I always produce ten songs as part of my yearly go-'round with the RPM Challenge, I wrote those ten songs for the book, and recorded a demo of them as my RPM Challenge album for 2012.

After listening to the demos once or twice, I came to an inescapable conclusion that those ten songs sucked. Well, they didn't all suck. One was good.  I threw out the other nine songs and wrote ten more. Of those ten, nine sucked and one half-sucked. I threw out the original plan and decided to take the one and a half songs that didn't suck and with them re-record some of my old material--because really, who has heard any of my old stuff?--and that would be the album.

Time went by and none of that happened; I missed both the release of the hardback and the paperback and now it's two years later (life, man, I tell you what). The lossless e.p. is the salvage of this project: it contains the two songs (nos. 2 and 4 on the e.p.) and a couple from my back-catalog. It's also the first formal release of "Men of Luggage," which, while ten years old, has never appeared on anything besides compilations released by other entities.

TRACKS

• 1) The Bridge
• 2) Just This Once
• 3) Men of Luggage
• 4) I Take it Back
• 5) Men of Luggage (Acoustic Version)

CREDITS

• Written, performed, recorded, and mixed by Paul Mariz at The Cowslip's Bell, Seattle, WA. Additional recording and mixing for (3) by Gino Scarpino at Joralemon House, Seattle WA. Additional backing vocals on (3) by Gino and Jason Hyatt
• Sounds of cars passing on (1) from freesound, recorded by Corsica_S and volivieri.
• Mastered by Kevin Bressler at Whiney Cat Audio, Seattle, WA. 

LISTEN/BUY

• Listen on Spotify
• Listen/Buy on Google Play
• Sample/Buy on iTunes
• Sample/Buy on Amazon
• Listen/Buy on Bandcamp

As of this writing there's no place to buy a physical CD;  there may be at some point--updates as events warrant. If you know me and ask nicely, I'll burn one for you. Otherwise, go listen on Spotify (or Google Play, if you're a subscriber). It's free, and I get, like, $0.0015 every time you play a song. Also, when you listen there, it associates The Calculus Affair with other music you listen to and that's good for me. If you're a downloader, my net from any of the four stores above is roughly the same, so support the marketplace of your choice.

THANKS

• In addition to those happy few of you out there who are Calculus Affair fans (you know who you are)...
• Matt Gani, Jennie Shortridge, Garth Stein, Stevie Kallos, and Ben Bauermeister (a.k.a. The Rejections). It is thanks to you that The Calculus Affair is now my side-project.
• Gino Scarpino, Kevin Hyatt, and Mark Cooper for an endless, life-long stream of musical support and constructive criticism.
• And Laurie Frankel: all and everything beyond words.