From 2022 - 2025, I was learning how to produce my own music at home - which initially began as an artefact of COVID-19 lockdowns, and eventually bore fruit as a creative voice developmental tool. I re-recorded 12 songs that I had written in my teenage years; re-imagined a decade after I'd written them. It felt almost like I was covering another person's music, and that was a wonderful novelty. 

Those 12 songs were released independently as EPs, named 'Seventeen', 'Eighteen', and 'Nineteen', respectively. And then in 2025, with a few re-mixed/new takes of songs, I compiled them into a full-length record. The arrangements had become too compelling to not feature as a "real deal" set of songs, you know? 

'Seventeen' was recorded exclusively in my kitchen, with low skill, but big fun ('Samstag', my most-streamed song still today, features USB dongle and salt-grinder percussion). 'Eighteen' was 85% recorded in that same kitchen (now with vocal collaborator Ash Foster), but featured 'The Bedford Line', a song that moved from total programmed synthesis to fully-improvised acoustic performances by Andrew Judah and I at his studio. Connecting 'Seventeen' and 'Eieghteen'  is the same heartbeat of DIY kitchen percussion, desk-knocking, audio samples from literal teenaged Caleb memories...

Lastly, Nineteen was recorded almost exclusively at Andrew's studio, featuring live instrumental performances all throughout. That last entry was such a fun contrast to the other two, that I decided to liven up a few of the Seventeen songs with new vocal performances (including Ash, Windmills, Andrew, and N. Sherman), and then add a few "live-off-the-floor" one-take songs to make a full-length record out of the three EPs.

It's definitely a mix-tape; one weird collage. I love how many things it does for me emotionally: it's the first project I worked on with Ash, it was the most hands-on I'd ever been on the production side of things, it was the most instrumentally collaborative with Andrew, and in the case of N. Sherman's cameos... well, he's the friend who has been writing songs alongside me since I was a teenager, so in a weirdly-real way, it feels like the record is also a love letter to our friendship and that long-gone, naive era of time.

I love the unlikely cohesion of this project. I find it very emotionally tactile. I find it helped me understand myself, my friends, and my craft. I recommend everyone to make a project like this. 

- CF