A Quirky Time for Something New

Release date: 9/11/2014

Third of three albums to date, A Quirky Time for Something New features material from the last few years.  Darker and more atmospheric than our previous releases, it still maintains the eclectic mix of electronic and acoustic sounds you’ve come to expect, and as usual the music is all over the metaphorical and literal map, evoking sounds from Africa (Papa Pi), feelings from Syria (Damasculated), and ideas from Hungary (Vörösszem), among others.

As with all of our music, we start with improvisation and continue through an iterative process of composition and construction using samples from the original improvisation, sometimes adding sounds and additional artists along the way.  We share thanks and writing credit with our guest artists P-Rose, Dean DeCrease, Joe Breskin, Sumit Basu, Court Crawford, Steve Markowitz, Matt Pickard, and DJ Essey’s dad Ed Essey, Sr, not to mention Snake’s lovely wife ParisAnne for forcing us to clean that shed.

The creative process is split pretty equally.  DJSE does the bulk of the hands-on construction in Ableton Live, but we regularly hand projects back and forth or work in parallel on two laptops.  DJSE builds out most of the percussion loops, often using samples we’ve captured using found objects.  Snake often takes the lead on harmonization.  DJSE takes Snake’s melody lines, chops them and recombines them so they are a product of our interaction.  The process we simplify down to the three terms “Synth, Sequencing, and Effects” is a creative task that encompasses everything from building drum loops to complex composition to audio envelope manipulation and filtering.

Mixing and mastering was done by DJSE in the Jaguar XKR Mobile Editing Suite (aka The Mes).

Without further ado, the tracks:

Neuroverdrive (Ch'min'ter) (feat. P-Rose)

DJSE: Synth, Sequencing, Effects (SSE)

Snake: Vox, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar

P-Rose: slide whistle

Neuroverdrive is the first of two tracks recorded one October weekend on a trip to Port Townsend, Washington.  We tracked this the first night in our room at the Palace Hotel.  The lyrics and name came about in a fun word game over a sushi dinner before our creative session.  Snake made effective use of a heavy-duty room fan by singing into it for built-in FX.

Ba

Ba

Ba

Neuroverdrive

Ch’min’ter

Neuroverdrive

Ba

Ch’min’ter

Ba Ba

Neuroverdrive (3x)

Ba

Ch’min’ter

Neuroverdrive

P-Rose lays down a slide whistle take

Marking the Lindsey’s fingerboard to facilitate playing the solo harmonic line in the latter part of the track.

One N Anette

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Ukulele, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar

A lovely floaty thing featuring Snake on ukulele and Lindsey guitar.  Several different motifs on the uke are combined in different ways over DJSE’s spare percussion.

At the Top of the Stairs

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, throat-singing, handrail, violin, door handle, wine glass

Dean DeCrease: Vox, bones

Somewhere in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, a nondescript door leads to a large open and irregular space, a sort of oversized anteroom leading to bathrooms, utility rooms, and a concrete stairway to the parking garage.  The large empty space produces a natural reverb that we wanted to put to our nefarious purposes.  We set up shop here one evening after work.  Snake brought the Lindsey guitar, a violin, and a couple of glasses to go with a nice bottle of Tempranillo he had been saving.  DJSE set up shop on top of a case of toilet paper borrowed from the utility closet.

Snake took advantage of the space by bowing the Lindsey guitar, and we balanced that decision by sampling the violin pizzicato.  Throat singing, an improvised glass harmonica, and a nicely resonant handrail down the stairs rounded out the samples.

Recording At The Top Of The Stairs on a makeshift editing table

Preparing to bow the Lindsey guitar

 In a later session at Cats Cradle East, Dean DeCrease provided some vocal samples and played a set of pork rib bones against the backing beat.  These found their way into the final track as well.

Sporking Battalion (feat. Joe Breskin)

DJSE: Piano guts, guiro, SSE

Snake: Piano guts

Joe Breskin: Guitarron, Guitar

Joe Breskin and P-Rose, spork war

The same trip that started with Neuroverdrive found us on the second day at Joe Breskin’s Port Townsend wonderland.  Since our last trip to Joe’s, he had acquired the strung plate from a discarded piano, and had it standing upright on his front porch.  We set up mics and explored this with sticks and mallets, sampling individual notes as well as glissandi.  Ed laid out a Latin beat, including both a sampled guiro and one he played live.  Joe played guitarron and guitar. 

At some point in the afternoon, Payton challenged Joe with a plastic folding spork.  Joe countered with a titanium spork, and the battle was engaged, giving us a handy title for the track.  Working titles rarely stick with us, but “sporking battalion” has survived unchanged from day 1.  (As has Neuroverdrive – that was a magical trip).

In post processing, we chopped Joe’s guitarron track into note samples and Ed built this into the back half of the tune.

The resonance of the plate and the sympathetic vibrations of the strings in the middle portion of the track make for a really magical ambience.

Ed, sampling the piano guts on Joe’s porch

Breskin tickles the Guitarron.

Quirky Hour for Something New

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Guitar

It was about 2 AM, long after the appointed time to leave the studio.  We were done – done, dammit, and in the wake of a newly finished track, DJ Essey started whipping together a new arrangement. 

Snake was incredulous – it was a weekday and there was work in the morning.  It was his house and he was ready to go to bed, but DJSE was onto something, creating something really catchy.  It was so cohesive and complete that it took us several sessions and many months to find a way for Snake to weave in his musical voice, playing on his Yamaha classical guitar.  We really like the result, and hope you will too.

We like to think the release date for the album – 9/11 – is a quirky time for something new and creative.  Snake’s daughter P-Rose was due to be born on September 17^th 2001, and the attack on the twin towers had he and ParisAnne wondering if it was a good time for a child to come into the world.  Quirky Time indeed.

Heavy Mike

DJSE: SSE

Snake: electric and acoustic guitars, piano, electric bass

This simple track has been the source of many an argument between Snake and DJSE.  DJSE would love to make music as simple and melodic as this.  Snake thinks it’s been done – “too commercial” he says.  “Not breaking new ground”.  In the end, we’re both attached to it.  It’s pretty and has just enough of our personalities to keep it interesting.  It’s a little bit grunge and a whole lot of pretty.

The original track consisted of the A/B pair of progressions that makes up the head of the tune.  The minor section that follows is something Snake made up when we started putting this collection together.

We would love for you to imagine a deep backstory to the title of this track, but the reality is pretty silly.  Ed had recently made two purchases – a nice new microphone, and a pretty flimsy mic stand to go with it.  The mic was all set up to record the rhythm guitar on this track, we turned our back, and boom. 

Heavy Mic.

Vörösszem (feat. Sumit Basu and Court Crawford)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar

Sumit Basu: Piano

Court Crawford: Upright bass

Smashing together the Hungarian words for “red eye,” Vörösszem is another piece fit for the darker side of time. Shortly after Snake returned from a trip to Hungary, and on the birthday of Nick's friend and co-worker Attila Voros, Sumit joined CCR in the cradle for the third time (following his previous contributions on Jack in the Bucket and Toasting More often). Flush from a few shots of Palinka, we loaded a deep ascending A Hungarian Gypsy scale on synthetic bass, and began weaving wicked stuff around it.  Later we invited the immensely talented Court Crawford to add his upright bass to the mix, and this drove yet another reinvention of this track.  Bowed, plucked, and struck 2xtar drives the undercarriage to make bodies move.

Damasculated

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar, banjo, slide guitar

On September 1, 2013, US President Barack Obama announced that he was seeking approval to take military action against Syria in the wake of alleged chemical attacks against Syrian nationals.  On September 3, we met for a music session.  Snake brought the 2xtar, and we were inspired by feelings of fear and uncertainty about what would happen in Damascus.

This track, with the banjo and the fife, and the deep warlike drone of the 2xtar, feels like an American battle cry – marching to war in yet another nation as the peacekeepers of the world.  There are mixed feelings of nationalism and sarcasm in the result – and over it all a feeling of being helpless to further or to stop the violence.

Jaanaap Conspiracy (feat. Steve Markowitz)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Vox, Electric guitar, Wine glass, electric dih, electric bass

Steve Markowitz: Piano, Sarcasm

This ethereal, after-dark jazz piece features irreverent jazz pianist Steve Markowitz.  Did Steve’s dog actually go to Juilliard, or was he just throwing us a metaphorical bone?  I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure.

“Jaanaap” is an invented word that refers to a mixed time signature in which multiple instruments are aligned on the beat, but playing different numerical cycles.  In this track, the drums are playing in 3/4, the piano and bass in 4/4, and the electric dih in 5/4.  Nick Dallett refers to this as “eighth note pulse” in his book The Musical Experience, and uses it as a structuring mechanism for improvisation.  Jaanaap is distinct from Hemiola, in which the time signatures align on the length of a bar.

The Trinity Paradigm (feat. Matt Pickard)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: guitars

Matt Pickard: guitars

Matt was visiting us from Vancouver, WA, and took some time to duet on guitars with Snake.  Matt then overdubbed additional guitar parts.  The thing that really makes this track is the interplay between the guitars and DJSE’s hypnotic tapestry of synthesized piano parts.  This is an exceptionally tasty track.

Matt strategizing between takes

  

Up To Go Down (Feat. Ed Essey Sr.)

DJSE: SSE

Snake: 2xtar, guitar

Ed Essey, Sr.: guitar

Before we started assembling this collection of tracks, Snake started work on a track on his own.  It was in his favorite time signature – 5/4 – and it was intended to feature the 2xtar.  When we were nearly done with the album, it was clear that the 2xtar would be a major part of the album.  Snake suggested bringing the new track along to round out the 2xtar-focused project. 

Snake lays down the original track

About this time, Ed’s dad visited and we brought him into a session to show him what we did.  We let him play some guitar riffs along with the new track.  We liked what he played, so we added them into the final track.

Esseys Junior and Senior

Papa Pi

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Guitars (Gibson L6, Yamaha classical, Lindsey fretless, Ron Ho steel string, Dobro)

Papa Pi was originally recorded on Snake’s deck back on July 15, 2011.

DJ Essey had been researching sub-Saharan African rhythms, and Snake had always wanted to try to build a multi-guitar afropop track.  After several years resting, and remixing with some new electronic sounds, the final result is an afropop-flavored construction with our own unique electronic twist.

Left to right:  Gibson L6, Dobro, Ron Ho steel string acoustic, Lindsey fretless tenor guitar, Yamaha classical

Honeydew Waltz

DJSE: Candy cane tube, spray can, paint tray, volleyball, SSE

Snake: 2xtar, lawnmower, glass lightshade, saw blade, drill, circular saw, jigsaw, flex hose, wonderbar, mayonnaise jar

ParisAnne: motivation

Who wouldn’t love a power-tool waltz line?  In this latest in the series of real house music (following the tradition of Salumba Parte and Boiling the Ocean), we took to Snake’s shed for a new boil.  Christmas decorations, power tools, and all manner of home improvement miscellanea found their way into the paws of the creative duo, who managed to create a hip, modern dance number while checking a big task off of Snake’s todo list.

Introducing the 2xtar. (pronounced two-by-tar). While boiling the shed, there were enough power tools in place that we could build an instrument with found objects. This instrument strings heavy wire across a length of 2x4.  Since this was home-improvement wire, not instrument-grade strings, we had a lot of slack to take up, and we wedged two camping-sized propane tanks to form a dual bridge. To capture and resonate the low frequencies, we screwed on two large cement mixing buckets.  The 2xtar was born! This instrument, with its squealing high-end, distinct percussion shrieks, and resonating bass that adds the signature sound for most of this album.  Check out themusic video to see the 2xtar get built!

Snake plays the 2xtar to DJSE’s beat at the release party for Jack in the Bucket, March 2014 at Row House. 

Zzik'kundz (feat. Court Crawford)

DJSE: Quarter and nutcan, Jar of change, SSE

Snake: Egg shaker, Ukulele, Electric bass, Berimbau, Piano

Court Crawford: Upright bass

One of the swingingest tracks on the album, Zzik’kundz’s core is an interplay between Snake on ukulele and Snake on bass.  The spinning quarter on an empty nut can is a throwback to First Frost in the Garden.  Court Crawford’s upright bass and a wicked battle between Snake’s electric uke and DJSE’s synthesized trumpet round out the piece.

We hope you enjoy these 14 tracks!  Please reach out and let us know what you think - here or on our facebook page.  

What we did on our summer vacation

Here in Seattle it's Bumbershoot time - the biggest music festival of the year, and the last big bash of summer before kids return to school. Seems appropriate that we're nearing a big musical milestone of our own.

We're delighted to announce that we're weeks away from the album we've been working on since Spring - A Quirky Time for Something New. As you can see from this snapshot of our project tracking page, we're down to finishing touches on the Hungarian-inspired track formerly known as Voros Nem, and working on cover art that will feature the 2xtar - the unique instrument that we invented during the Honeydew Waltz session and that is featured on a number of tracks on the new album.

Musically, we think we've outdone ourselves with the new material, and we're looking forward to hearing what you think!

- Nick "Snake" Dallett, and DJ Ed Essey

Introducing Jack in the Bucket

(or, Why Sacajawea has to work on the side)

Cats Cradle Robbers are very pleased to present our second collection of electroacoustic constructions, Jack in the Bucket.  

This album collects together material spanning our first seven years of making music together, from the very earliest tracks (Kelley’s Loss, Attempting Electronic Reprisal) to material that was significantly developed expressly for this release (Lita, Mille Boba).  We’re very proud of the music that has resulted from our eclectic bag of stylistic tricks, and we hope you will too.  Here is some insight into the material on this record, which is now available for digital download on Amazon, ITunes, Spotify, and many other channels.

All music is by Nick “Snake” Dallett and Ed Essey, except for Electrullabye (DJ Essey’s solo) and Ujjayi (Snake’s solo).  Also, because all of our music starts with improvisation by the participants, guest artists share in the glory or shame of their tracks, and therefore writing credit can also be imputed to Sumit Basu, Steve Markowitz, Joe Breskin, Tomo Hoku, as well as to Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham from whom we borrowed riffs to build Mille Boba.

Many thanks to our wives for putting up with this madness twice a month plus snow days.

DJ Essey mixed and mastered it all.

Jack in the Bucket (feat. Sumit Basu)

DJ Essey: Trombone, SSE (synth, sequencing, effects)

Snake: Trumpet, Dobro, Vox, breaking glass, keys

Sumit Basu: Trumpet, Vox, champagne bucket

On June 25^th, 2009, Michael Jackson passed from this earth.  On that day, we had already planned a Cats Cradle Robbers session at DJ Essey’s Seattle bachelor pad (aka Cats Cradle West).   Microsoft Senior Researcher Sumit Basu joined us to see what we were up to.  He and DJ Essey became acquainted at MIT, and Sumit was playing with an automated music authoring software project called SongSmith.

At the time, our production process was still in its infancy, and we were more focused on the creative process than the final product.  For example, rather than using headphones, we were playing a burgeoning track through speakers on a loop, and recording additions live in the room.   Each track has the rhythm tracks playing in the background, which adds a certain ambience to the track, but this is any audio engineer’s nightmare.  Luckily, everything fell together, and this track happened in the space of 2 hours, from initial drum loop to final configuration – practically “live” from our perspective.  These days, we use headphones and proper isolation techniques that allow us greater freedom in how we use and modify samples in our constructions.

Inspired by Michael Jackson, Sumit sang a variation of the chant “ma ma ko, ma ma sa, ma ma ko sa” first used by Manu Dibongu in his 1972 song Soul Makossa, and later used by Jackson.  The lyrics on this track were ad-libbed and are prone to subjective interpretation.  Here are the lyrics as I understand them:

Ma ma se  Ma ma sa  ma ma ko sa

Ma ma se  Ma ma sa  ma ma ko sa

Ma ma se  Ma ma sa  ma ma ko sa

Ma ma se  Ma ma sa  ma ma ko sa

Champagne bucket a bucket a buh

mamase makossa

Champagne bucket a bucket a buh

mamase makossoft

Jack in the pocket it’s just a question of time

You got a rock in the pocket you got a rock in the rhyme

Jack in the bucket, you got a question of time

You got a rock in the pocket, you got a rock in the rhyme, gotta

Sacajawea she got to work on the side

(unintelligible)

Sacajawea, she got a working design

(inscrutable)

Mille Boba

Snake: Dobro, SSE, Vox

DJ Essey: SSE

Sometime in 2007 or 2008, the band went for a pre-session dinner at Szechuan Noodle Bowl and unexpectedly ran into DJ Essey’s friend David and his wife Millie.  We combined forces, and after dinner wound up at Gossip, where Millie introduced Nick to Bubble tea (aka Boba Tea) and thus forever immortalized herself in song. 

Originally entitled “Immigrant Millie Bobo”, the track was our first experiment using miked samples and was released on our website in its original form in 2009.  Snake played two classic rock riffs on his dobro – Jimi Hendrix’s gorgeous melodic line from Third Stone from the Sun, and the ostinato from Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song – and we mashed ‘em up, adding an original guitar line, both straight up as Snake played it and diced up by DJ Essey.  The track remained in that state for about 5 years until we pulled it out to include on this album.  Snake added bass and rhythm guitar to harmonize the melody two new ways (once in E major and again in C# minor), and we replaced the original Immigrant guitar part with the same ostinato using a piano sample.  The final song title came about through our typical associative process, dropping a word here, changing a vowel there.  The result, “Mille Boba”, is a Sino-Italian portmanteau that translates to “One Thousand Breasts”.  Make of that what you will.

Something We Ate (feat. Steve Markowitz)

DJ Essey: SSE, breath

Snake: guitars, wine glass, SSE, breath

Steve Markowitz: piano, words, breath

Snake’s association with composer and improvisational pianist Steve Markowitz (as “Polyrhythmics”) predates the formation of Cats Cradle robbers by several years.   We always have a lot of fun with Steve – he’s playful and uninhibited, and we share a nice musical chemistry.

This was the first of several sessions with Steve.  We got together at Cats Cradle East, where DJ Essey captured Steve’s improvisations and singled out the loop that forms the backbone of this track.  We followed that up with a number of versions that progressively added new layers, new sections, and finally led to what you hear on the album.

Electrullabye

DJ Essey: SSE

DJ Essey’s first solo outing for Cats Cradle Robbers started as an experiment in animating pitch in Ableton.  

He built that seed into a lovely electronic lullabye that aspires to answer Philip K Dick’s titular question.

Hush little baby

Don’t say a word

Poppa’s gonna buy you

A mockingbird

Swan Station 5

DJ Essey: SSE, leaky shower

Snake: Bottom drawer, ceiling fan, piano, bass, SSE

In May 2009, DJ Essey joined Snake’s family on a trip to Port Townsend to experience the Rhodedendron festival.  The band set up shop in Essey’s room at the Swan hotel where they proceeded to disassemble and sample everything in sight.  The bottom drawer of the dresser became a bodhran, the brass ceiling fan a tabla, the screen window insert a shaker, the dripping shower an alarm bell, a disassembled curtain rod an agogo.  Did Snake play the ceiling fan with chopsticks or with his bare fingers?  Snake remembers it one way and DJE another.

Several tracks began on that trip, but none harnessed Essey’s inspiration like this tango-flavored construction.  Featuring bandoneón, viola, and cello samples, we also took the time for Snake to learn and record Essey’s sequenced bass and piano tracks verbatim using real instruments.

The Swan hotel, combined with a common preoccupation with the first season of LOST, inspired the title.

Ujjayi

Snake: Piano, classical guitar, SSE

Snake’s solo outing, like Essey’s Electrullabye, started as a learning experiment in Ableton Live.  Snake took a simple loop and added live guitar and piano samples to evoke a trancey yoga mood.  The ujjayi (oceanic) breath is approximated by a found shotgun sample and lots of reverb.

Attempting Electronic Reprisal

Attempting Electronic Reprisal is based off of our very first Ableton Live set, called Attempting Electronic, made during our first jam session with Kelley Vice.  As Snake and Kelley played, DJ Essey created electronic loops to accompany the guitars.  The second set made during that session, The Tyranny of the Drum Machine, has been lost to time (and a dropped laptop that clobbered the harddrive).  Attempting Electronic Reprisal is one of only three tracks that survived the lost hard drive (the other two were La Voie Lactée and a track called Spirit Hole Skydive which was our first experiment with a live instrument).

 Stealing Candy (feat. Joe Breskin)

DJ Essey:  SSE

Joe Breskin: Guitar

Snake: Guitar, Lindsey guitar, Big Bad vocal, SSE

On another trip to Port Townsend, Snake, and Port Townsend guitarist Joe Breskin took guitars and recording gear to the Boiler Room for an impromptu performance.  This track started with a couple of samples from that evening, but the main action revolves around a guitar riff of Breskin’s called “theme from the Pfeiffer River beach”.   Joe discusses the creation of that tune on his website (search the page for “Big sur” here).

Stealing Candy also features an experiment in Augenmusik (“eye music”).  The synthesizer break partway in includes a MIDI track in which the notes are laid out to spell the name of the track.  This results in a series of tone clusters and glissandi that underlies the more composed melodic chimes.  The effect of the combined tracks sounds like a summertime ice cream truck, or candy truck perhaps.

Kelley's Loss

The original sessions that led to the formation of Cats Cradle Robbers were conducted in the summer of 2007 on the back deck at Cats Cradle East, and included a third founding member: guitar virtuoso and technical writer extraordinaire Kelley Vice.  Kelley lasted two sessions and was a no-show for the third, when we put together this loop.  Were we bitter?  Is the title a little passive aggressive?  Maybe.  But we’ll see how Kelley feels when the royalties start pouring in!

Kelley remains a friend and we stay in touch on Facebook, but he hasn’t participated in a session since.

Weftovers (feat. Tomo Hoku)

Tomo Hoku: ili’ili

DJ Essey: SSE, pu’ili

Snake: Bass, ukulele, flute, dobro, harmonicas, uli’uli

Tomo Hoku is a friend, Japanese translator, hula teacher, tour guide, and world traveler.  She also happens to write a column for a Japanese language periodical out of Chicago called Prairie Magazine.  She came by Cats Cradle East in 2009 to interview the band and see how we work.  She brought along some traditional hula instruments for us to try out - little did she know she would get roped into participating.  For the Japanese speakers in the audience, here’s the resulting article. 

La Voie Lactée

Another one of the early “spirit holes”, this loop also started life as an Ableton exercise – this time focused on animating tempo.  The base loop does not change anything but tempo –starting off at a moderate walk, increasing to a brisk trot, and finally tailing off to nothing.  The name comes from a surrealistic French film by Luis Buñuel – for reasons lost in time, Snake was reminded of the film by the track or the process.

This track is notable as well for including the melodic phrase that became – either by subconscious suggestion or by coincidence – the opening melody for Boiling the Ocean.

Boiling the Ocean

DJ Essey: SSE, frying pan, chips, ice, coke, salsa, toaster, vitamins

Snake: wine glasses, bottles, steaming flask, knife on steel, kettle bass

Snake dreamed up a project when he was leading improvisational ensembles in the 1980s, which involved taking a group of improvisers through somebody’s house, playing music in each room using only objects found in that room.  While this was never accomplished using live musicians, the project is being realized by Cats Cradle Robbers under the name “Real House Music.”  Boiling the Ocean is the first track from this project.  It was built by sampling sounds produced by items in Snake’s kitchen, and the process was documented in a video which you can find on YouTube.  We have since “boiled” Snake’s bedroom (Salumba Parte, released on the album Abewsing The Mews), Shed (Honeydew Waltz), and laundry room (The Dry Sound of Atonement).

Lita

DJSE: SSE

Snake: Lindsey guitar, Gibson L6

In 2008, DJ Essey's love of tango and salsa dancing had him out late dancing nearly every night of the week.  He'd come home, late, and still fired up from a night out, and put his hands on the keys.  Those were very much bachelor days, when the Cradle West kitchen was a full time music studio with amps, mics, and control surfaces hooked up everywhere. 

With blood still pumping in his veins and beats in his limbs, the DJ would sit down at the control surfaces and build loop-based scenes.  One was based off of a dance fantasy conceived as Lia… but since the piece was so small, and the vibe inspired by Latin vibes, she was dubbed Lita, a very spunky little seed. Most of our seeds never go anywhere, but this seed was so vibrant, Snake had to work with it.  Snake picked up his guitars and laid down a few riffs.  They were a totally different direction than DJ Essey had planned to take it, and the piece would lay dormant in creative tension for years.  

Sometimes Lita came out to play, only to be put away with little progress made. Magical forces happen when a team agrees to "stop starting and start finishing," as when Cats Cradle Robbers applied kanban principles to our music.  As Jack in the Bucket turned from an EP into an album, we were committed to raising Lita together, and she sprouted into the piece released today.  As with most of our tracks, this collaboration led to something that neither of us would have created individually, proving that one and one can equal three for very large values of one.