Throughout the summer I’ve been working on the process of converting an album’s worth of hard-earned new songs into an actual completed record. This is my second opportunity to pass through the somewhat rarefied experience of recording a album; there’s much more I’m learning this time around, more I'm discovering about the process and more about myself. Of course it is a shared experience, one in which a collection of deeply personal words and melodies meets the ears of artists and engineers, players and a producer, each with his or her own impressions and observations, each with his or her own ideas and gifts to contribute. It’s my impression that even under the best of circumstances this is a delicate and at times painful dance.