11/21/2022
Now that we’ve arrived at the week of Thanksgiving we feel it is time to invite you on a journey. For the past year we’ve been working on a side project with our dear friend and multifaceted producer and musician Jeff Crawford (of Arbor Ridge Studios) . It’s a project that was born out of hours Daniel and Jeff have spent together in the studio, teaming up on other peoples’ projects. During these sessions they have slowly homed in on what their music would sound like if they formed a band. For years this hypothetical band was called The Nervous Gregorians. We are happy to announce their first official venture as a real band: Christmas, out now via Tone Tree Music! It features a plethora of first rate musicians from NC and beyond. As one of the people lucky enough to get to contribute to this project, I (Lauren) have to say that there is no better train to the holiday season than the one that is conducted by Daniel and Jeff. Is it weird to say that this album of Christmas songs is one of my favorite albums in existence? Even though I sang on it and am intimately acquainted with its twists and turns, it continues to move and surprise me. If you love the mysterious low-lit shimmer of a single candlestick gleaming behind a frosted window pane, climb aboard! If you enjoy the slightly dissonant sonic crossroads of campy and sincere 1960s artists like Herb Alpert and Moondog, climb aboard! If you like to be surprised by laughter when you are about to cry, climb aboard! If you are needing a holiday music reboot, by all means, CLIMB ABOARD! This train is leaving the station and it is serving up complementary hot buttered rum and hot cocoa all the way to Christmastown.
https://tonetree.ffm.to/christmas
Cast and crew:
Lauren Plank Goans - vocals, vocal arrangement, album art
Skylar Gudasz - flute, vocals, vocal arrangement on "Mary Mary"
Joe Westerlund - drums, percussion
Karen Galvin - violin
Rusty Smith - flugel horn, trumpet
Mark Simonsen- vibraphone
Alec Spiegelman - bass clarinet, clarinet