NOTES.

Last year we moved to a pre-Civil War farmhouse on a piece of land surrounded by open fields and meandering tree lines. The sky is bluer out here by day and blacker by night. We see real stars after dark especially when the moon is new. When the moon is full, we walk the mown night paths in a light that feels sacred, a light that has the same effect on the body and senses as a good glass of wine, or secret good news, or maybe good laughter remembered silently from a distance. It was a dream to land in a place like this, plant our feet on a piece of earth surrounded by a few tall trees, trees that have been alive much longer than we have. Apart from good music, the sound of the wind moving through the pines next to the back porch may be as close as we’ve come to the sound of the Holy Spirit moving. We can get lost there.
Our own songs have nudged us forward in a life we now recognize as very much our own, the life we have been given. We’ve been more-or-less penniless on various occasions, but it seems we nonetheless often manage to be surrounded by exceptionally good food and drink and people who have stories to tell and a knack for making us laugh. In the early days, I once described the life of the touring musician like this:

It’s a beautiful vacation
But you wear Salvation Army clothes

I look out the guest room window here at the farm as I write this: I see nothing but increasingly familiar trees, fields and sky: more than worth the price of admission.

The songs continue to arrive, and we continue to need to know where the songs want to take us. We’re still curious. We still have the ability to be surprised.

So we invited Paul here to Nowhere Farm awhile back to help set up the microphones and get us started on this our first real recording at the farm. We sat on the back porch and talked about music and how everything in the universe is vibrating, everything joining in.

The leaves are falling, the rocks are crying out, harmonic clouds are drifting by, stars are droning light – whether or not the human ear is capable of tuning in, it’s all pulsing, it’s all connected, an infinite organism of song. I confessed that my mind has been chattering away this year like a dancing puppet with a sprained ankle. How do I quiet my mind and tune into the bigger picture?

Paul gave us a new ancient mantra, a tuning device, a mind-quieter: Sa Ta Na Ma, Wa He Gu Ru: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

It was an eye-opener. As a musician, I can riff on these words, find countless variations.

Every day arrives, becomes evening, becomes night, becomes morning: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

A hawk flies dead quiet into the locust grove next to the garden and waits: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

The maples this year were golden, rouged through and through, gilded with ambers and lovely rust. The maple grove shook out the softest yellow blanket of leaves, a kneedeep invitation. Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

My own father turned 80 this fall. My father: the Amish boy who left the Amish farm at age 21 and eventually bought an upright piano for his own son. Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

This is the vibration of the universe, the everywhere song, the rhythm of everything.

I’ve been trying to figure out why it was so fun to write and record these songs. Karin and I are drawn to Christmas music like children to snow: it just feels like play. It could be that Karin grew up with the voices of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole on her grandmother’s record player – singers who made Christmas feel like no other time of year. It could be that my own father loved to unearth odd Christmas gems like “Do You Hear What I Hear” or Mahalia Jackson’s “Go Tell It On The Mountain.”

As we set about brewing this music, we tried to steep it in the stuff of the everyday. But somewhere along the way we realized that underneath everything, isn’t that ancient mantra, the deeper rhythm, the crux of Christmas? Isn’t the Christ child, the baby in the manger born surrounded by blinking animals, the baby that grew to a man and taught his followers to love the Creator with all they could muster and their neighbors as themselves, isn’t the life story of Jesus the quintessential embodiment of this deepest of all rhythms: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

Come late November on Nowhere Farm when the leaves are lying down and the earth is lying fallow, we’ll put lights up in the windows and trim a Nowhere Farm tree, and lift a glass of something warm and glowing with the familiarity of home. (Karin has always loved this time of year.) And then we’ll come looking for you with these songs all wrapped up for real. (In the thick of the night, take me out of the cold, let me sing inside like a radio...)

And when we finally get back to the farm a few days before Christmas Eve, and it’s just the two of us and the dogs and the cozy kitties, we’ll pray we get snowed in. And after the storm, when all is still, the stars will wink at the sleepy farm, and we’ll hear the sound of the violin in our heads, and we’ll burrow down deep in our beds, and we’ll breathe ourselves grinning full of Christmas: Birth – Life – Death – Resurrection: Wow God.

Happy holidays,
Linford Detweiler for Over the Rhine,
Nowhere Farm, November 3, 2006

MUSICIAN CREDITS.

1. All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue (4:24)
Words and Music: Bergquist/Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Percussion
Byron House: Upright Bass
Linford Detweiler: Piano
Karin Bergquist: Vocals

2. Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming) (3:33)
Words and Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Percussion
Brad Jones: Bass, Lowrey Organ
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar, Piano,
Background Vocals
Karin Bergquist: Vocals

3. White Horse (4:14)
Words and Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit
Byron House: Upright Bass
Brad Jones: Mandolin
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Accordion
Karin Bergquist: Vocals

4. Little Town (3:22)
First verse: Traditional. Additional Words and Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit
Byron House: Upright Bass
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar,
Hammond Organ, Background Vocals
Karin Bergquist: Vocals

5. New Redemption Song (2:25)
Words and Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit
Brad Jones: Bass, Electric Guitar
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar, Piano,
Hammond Organ
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

6. Goodbye Charles (2:17)
Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit
Byron House: Upright Bass
Linford Detweiler: Piano

7. Snowed In With You (5:07)
Words and Music: Bergquist/Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit
Byron House: Upright Bass
Fats Kaplin: Violin
Linford Detweiler: Piano
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

8. North Pole Man (3:07)
Words and Music: Bergquist/Detweiler
Byron House: Upright Bass
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

9. Here It Is (3:24)
Words and Music: Detweiler
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit and Percussion
Brad Jones: Bass, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar, Piano,
Hammond Organ, Bells
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

10. One Olive Jingle (3:55)
(Traditional. Arrangement by Bergquist/Detweiler)
Mickey Grimm: Drum Kit and Percussion
Byron House: Upright Bass
Linford Detweiler: Piano
Karin Bergquist: Vocals

11. Snow Angel (4:28)
Words and Music: Detweiler
David Henry: Cello
Linford Detweiler: Piano
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

12. We’re Gonna Pull Through (2:47)
Words and Music: Bergquist/Detweiler
David Henry: Cello
Linford Detweiler: Acoustic Guitar, Piano
Karin Bergquist: Vocal

PRODUCTION CREDITS.

This is a Great Speckled Dog recording.
Produced by Over the Rhine and Brad Jones.
Recorded by Paul Mahern and Peter Hicks at Nowhere Farm and by Brad Jones at Alex the Great, Nashville, Tennessee. Additional recording by Kevin Loyal at Echo Park Studios, Bloomington, Indiana.
Mixed by Paul Mahern, except “Goodbye Charles” (Brad Jones) and “We’re Gonna Pull Through” (Kevin Loyal).
Mastered by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering, Phoenix, Arizona. (This music was designed to be played at magnificent volumes.)
Illustration by Clinton Reno.
Photography by Michael Wilson. (Additional photos courtesy of the Bergquist/Detweiler Archive.)
Design by Owen Brock at Visual Fluency. (visualfluency.com)
Special thanks to Over the Rhine’s manager, Glen Phillips. (glen@beatmanagement.com)
Booking: Ali Giampino at Billions Corporation. (giampino@billions.com)
Tour management and more: Brandon Dawson.
Live sound: Dave Foreman aka Juicy.

The title “North Pole Man” was inspired by a drawing by Polly Wilson, Age 7, called “North Pole Man Holding A Map Looking For A Warm Place.”

"Hawking original Christmas songs has never been the easiest commercial venture, but Ohio duo Over the Rhine renounced the pursuit of mainstream success long ago. Snow Angels, its 2006 collection of wistful holiday music, didn't reach far beyond the band's devoted following, but it might be the best soundtrack since A Charlie Brown Christmas for feeling melancholy and lovesick in December. Over the Rhine's annual holiday shows promise to draw from Snow Angels and the best of their earthy, dark-roasted catalogue. The band sells its own coffee online and the piano-driven music practically begs to be mused upon over one hot drink or another. Pianist/husband Linford Detweiler crafts songs with gorgeous open spaces, and vocalist/guitarist/wife Karin Bergquist fills them with an emotional range that makes sure the meditative music still flirts and surprises."

- Seattle Weekly

***

"Singer Karin Bergquist and multi-instrumentalist Linford Detweiler share songwriting duties, and with this set of original songs, they've crafted not just one of the year's best holiday albums, but one of its best, period. Knowing the season sparks a multitude of emotions, they explore loneliness, romance, hope, spirituality, wonder and forgiveness, subjects wrapped in music that's evocatively atmospheric and irresistibly melodic. "

- LOS ANGELES TIMES 12/17/07

***

"Most Christmas music lands with the sickening thud of a fruitcake. It's treacly, larded and fake.

The veteran band known as Over the Rhine understand this completely, so they've sought to make their holiday album a dry-eyed assessment of this fraught season.

They've had some practice at it. The Ohio-based band, led by the husband-wife team of Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, issued its first Christmas album 11 years ago, titled "The Darkest Night of the Year." Despite the name, the disk hardly blotted out the lighter aspects of the season. Like that CD, the new "Snow Angels" covers every emotional hue brought on by the day. They've nailed the particular ache of another year ending, when regret and gratitude do their sad and wondrous annual dance.

Hope and longing, sex and death all have their say in these songs. In "White Horse," the singer dreams of an escape that seems far away. In "New Redemption Song," there's an admission of all that's wrong in life, with a prayer it won't always be so.

Bergquist's high, quavering voice holds all the yearning and belief the songs require. She has the bluesy feel of a young Maria Muldaur, matched to the erudition of Eva Cassidy. The music of Detweiler sways lovingly between blues and jazz.

In "Goodbye Charles," he goes wholly for the former. It's an instrumental wink to Vince Guaraldi's brilliant soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Like that music, Detweiler's has a playful bass and a terse piano, landing halfway between the sprightly and the mournful.

Bergquist mines her sexy side in "North Pole Man," an acoustic blues come-on that could have been sung by Bessie Smith. A rethink on "Jingle Bells" turns the song into a chubby chaser's erotic fantasy about Santa.

Over the Rhine also re-wrote the traditional "O Little Town of Bethlehem," making it a comment on the current Middle East. Meanwhile, in "All I Ever Get for Christmas Is Blue," they give in wholly to personal sadness. Even in the final, obligatory song of hope, "We're Gonna Pull Through," the music sounds more tentative than its title suggests.

Yet there's something stirring about this as well. By wrapping up such an honest package about the season, Over the Rhine has given us a gift we can use. "

- NY Daily News 12/16/07

***

"Over the Rhine make wonderful Snow Angels."

- FROM NY PRESS 12/7/06

***

Over the Rhine continue its joyful sounds
By David Freeland

Linford Detweiler, half of the musical duo Over the Rhine, writes on his website, “We hope that Snow Angels is a record that becomes part of the landscape for small gatherings of people who love each other.” It’s a fitting description of a recording whose charm is exceeded only by its musical dexterity. Karin Bergquist, Detweiler’s wife and longtime artistic partner, has always been an exceptional singer, but here she shines in new, varied ways, sounding as girlish as Patty of the Andrews Sisters one minute, as torchy as Sarah Vaughan the next. “Darlin’ (Christmas Is Coming)” could be a long-lost track from Phil Spector’s holiday album, and the emphasis on spirituality (“snow is falling like forgiveness from the sky”) adds depth and a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world.

Over the Rhine (named after a struggling, historic Cincinnati neighborhood) has been around since the late 1980s, with members coming and going—although the Detweiler/Bergquist axis has remained steady. Categorizing the group would be useless: It’s been compared (unfairly) to everything from 10,000 Maniacs to contemporary Christian music for its humanistic concern with religious questions (Detweiler is the son of a Protestant minister). Big companies like Virgin and IRS have signed up for a few albums apiece, but OTR has found just as much success working on its own, using word of mouth to build awareness. Overall it has done a remarkable job, although Detweiler occasionally betrays just a hint of frustration at not having gained wider recognition.

“We’ve been waiting for one song to sort of shoot up on the horizon and create a little fireworks display,” he admits, speaking from his Ohio farm (dogs are barking in the background). “I’ve often wondered: Have we suffered from being so isolated? That’s been a real advantage for us in terms of finding ourselves creatively. But the downside is that I think if we lived in a place like New York or Nashville, the amount of work that Karin would be able to do, apart from Over the Rhine, would be significant.”

Detweiler is his wife’s biggest fan, and he supports her with beautifully rendered piano solos on Snow Angels. Together, they’ve made an album bursting with life and creativity, rooted in spiritual issues but set apart through a pacifistic stance (“Put away your swords,” Karin sings on the yearning “Little Town”).

“Spiritually, I’ve been a little bit all over the map. I’ve certainly abandoned my childhood faith, and then have struggled to come back to a place that makes sense to me. As difficult as it can be to reconcile with everything I know, I personally can’t rule out the idea of a benevolent, supreme creator: an artist, a conflicted, creative force. Every time I see the night sky, flung full of stars, something awakens in me.”

- MUSIC FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE

***

Positively Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ANNUAL Hip Holiday Music feature
by John M. James

Ten years since they treated fans to their first holiday CD, The Darkest Night of the Year, Over the Rhine returns with Snow Angels on the Great Speckled Dog imprint. Somewhere between Billie Holiday, Nat “King” Cole, the Cowboy Junkies, blues voodoo and an Appalachian church’s serenity simmers the amber honey confessional waltz of duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler. Candle lit with snowflakes falling, these eleven perfect originals are playful, unashamedly romantic, and heart paining redemptive. One cover of sorts fits right in - a softly possessed interpretation of “Jingle Bells” into “One Olive Jingle” - and a piano instrumental finds inspiration from Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas in “Goodbye Charles.”

This is a Great Speckled Dog recording.
Produced by Over the Rhine and Brad Jones.