In theory, Laketown was the 7th Bloomistry album. It quickly followed To Be, with recording taking place on August 21–23, 2009. But with To Be absorbing most of my attention, and getting all the promotional focus, Laketown remained in the background. It was lost in the flurry. In fact, I raided it for three songs to put on To Be: Wine and Women, On Top of the World, and To The Bottom.

The sessions for To Be—from February 16 to August 9—were long, drawn-out, and frustrating. Enough material was recorded for three or four albums, but much of it was unreleasable. Many of the songs simply didn’t work, for one reason or another. The irony is that I was being really ambitious on To Be, writing songs with key changes and odd time signatures  and movements. It was my prog-rock album! But the songs that were making me crazy were the three-minute, conventional pop tunes. Some I abandoned, others I re-recorded from the ground up, two or three or more times. One of those songs was Fallen Leaves, picked up once again for the Laketown session. The version on this album is one of many, and while this song never quite came together, the idea never lost its interest. I am still wondering how to get that one right. It’ll be amazing when I do.

This album was a return to the approach of All I Know Is The Skin Of The Earth—making a record in a marathon weekend session. After the exhausting mess of To Be, the appeal of the recording studio had somewhat diminished. I didn’t want ten months of pain—a weekend was enough. The record was also in a sense a return to the first Bloomistry album, Galetta Street Wharf, which has always had a soft spot in my heart. Both were based on a fictional town, and both were made without any concern for conforming to an overall album style or genre. As a result, Laketown ranges in style from rock to country. At 18 seconds in length, the final song “In Summary….” is a musical jest as well as a Reader’s Digest take on pop music: “I love her, but she don’t love me.”

Laketown is uneven and rough, and some of it makes me cringe, but it features three gems in Port Aurora, Fear, and Another Day. It was mixed by Dave Draves on September 8, 2009, two weeks before the mastering of To Be on September 22, at Bova Sound studio.

Tracks.

1. Beautiful Posers
2. Over and Under
3. Fallen Leaves
4. Fear
5. Another Day
6. Port Aurora
7. Deep As a River
8. Wake Up
9. In Summary….