New Capstan Shafts – Revelation Skirts

For the last year, I have had the privilege of working on an album with one of my very favorite songwriters, Dean Wells (aka The Capstan Shafts). Revelation Skirts has its origins in a series of demos Dean sent me last year, one of which I would like to share here:

Capstan Shafts – “Your Wasted Is a Talent Here” (Demo) “Your Wasted Is a Talent Here” was one of the hardest songs on the record to flesh out, and I’m still very fond of this solo electric “A Good Flying Bird” version. Questions of arrangement and performance often get lost when discussing “lo-fi” vs. “hi-fi,” but recording fidelity itself is arguably the LEAST important part of this equation. The sense of intimacy and immediacy that permeates Dean’s home-recorded albums is more a product of spare arrangements and off-the-cuff performances than it is a simple matter of tape hiss and static. In producing Revelation Skirts (and playing a couple instruments on it as well), I attempted to bring out the confidence and mastery in Dean’s songwriting, which necessarily meant sacrificing some of this off-the-cuff charm. I don’t think this is an inherently better or worse approach, but I do think it speaks to the strength and versatility of Dean’s music.

Capstan Shafts – “Your Wasted Is a Talent Here” A few more MP3s are up on my website here, and Dan Bolles wrote an excellent article about this record for Seven Days Vermont. Revelation Skirts is available at Amie Street, Amazon, and (hopefully) at your favorite local record store, too.

- Matt LeMay