The draw of OTM for Andreassen is what she refers to as the “economy of musicality -- creating maximum beauty with a minimalist approach on the instrument … doing as little as possible, but to greatest affect.”
As for their She Waits for Night, it was recorded at Dirk Powell’s studio in Louisiana. The time at which they recorded SWFN came, Andreassen says, “a month before we all got cell phones … none of us had wireless cards on our computers … it was like a little moment before the world changed.” The girls stayed at a friend’s house, and shared one car between the four of them. It was the height of summer and the g’Earls were pretty much stranded in the heat of Louisiana. But, she says, they “really became a band in the process of making that record. [Before that], the music had a little bit [of a] four-separate-things-at-a-buffet sort of style to it.”
As a testament to the raw beauty of what Uncle Earl is about, the band recorded “There is a Time” “literally five minutes” after Groves wrote the song, with no extra takes or edits. Still, says Andreassen, that recording was just the beginning of what the band would like to do.
But for now, the g’Earls are on a break until the new year, when they’ll open for Yonder Mountain String Band at the Fillmore in Denver, CO, before heading back into the studio with a “rock and roll producer” that Andreassen wasn’t at liberty to name. Certainly, the new record will far surpass the old one. After all, the band has a new member -- bass player Sharon Gilchrist. And no doubt the harmonies and intuitive song selections will continue to forge the girls further into the unknown.
