10-time IBMA Award winning fiddler, singer, songwriter and Minnesota Music Hall of Fame member Becky Buller celebrates the release of her most personal album to date - Jubilee. This album is a song cycle, meant to be listened to as sequenced and in its entirety. The song cycle Jubilee was commissioned by the FreshGrass Foundation and originally debuted at the FreshGrass Festival in Bentonville, AR in 2023.
Producer and mixing engineer Stephen Mougin shares: "When Becky brought me a full rehearsal recording of this project, I was immediately hooked. I’ve known her since ’97 and I feel like this is her best work to date, both as a songwriter AND as a performer. She bares her soul and shares her story. It’s thematically deep and musically intense.
Since it was a “classical-inspired” song cycle, I suggested that we track it live in one room, to embrace that tradition. It offered Becky and her amazing band a challenge, and an opportunity to try something new in the recording process. By the date of the session they had already performed the song cycle, in its entirety, a number of times and really had it dialed in. Becky is such an amazing live performer, I had every confidence that this would work.
We were fortunate to be able to use the Studio 9 in North Adams, Massachusetts, thanks to the Freshgrass Foundation and I decided to bring along the amazing Dave Sinko to engineer the tracking session so I could focus on the minutiae of producing. Recording in one room poses a few challenges such as instrument bleed on all of the microphones, which requires each note of each performance to be solid. There’s no safety net for solos or vocals. If one person makes a mistake, the whole band has to redo the take.
The song cycle was tracked in a day-and-a-half with all solos and lead vocals performed absolutely live. I’m so proud of Becky, Ned, Jacob, Wes, and Daniel for their exquisite musicality.
We all hope that the subject matter will offer hope and help to those in need, and that this project will remain sonic bliss for years to come."
MUSICIANS:
Becky Buller - vocals, fiddle, cello banjo
Jacob Groopman - vocals, guitar
Daniel Hardin - vocals, bass
Wes Lee - mandolin
Ned Luberecki - banjo
Special guest (courtesy of Yep Roc Records): Aoife O'Donovan - vocals (track 5)
TRACK LISTING:
01.Prelude
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI Aoife O’Donovan, Cosmic Seed Music, ASCAP
02.Kismet
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
03.Woman
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
04.Interlude
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI Aoife O’Donovan, Cosmic Seed Music, ASCAP
05.Jubilee
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI Aoife O’Donovan, Cosmic Seed Music, ASCAP
06.Spiral
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
07.Alone
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
08.Descent
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
09.Whale
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI
10.Postlude
Becky Buller, Goodnight Sparky Music, BMI Aoife O’Donovan, Cosmic Seed Music, ASCAP
Produced and mixed by Stephen Mougin for Dark Shadow Recording
Recorded at Studio 9, North Adams, MA
Engineered by Dave Sinko
Mastered by David Glasser for Airshow Mastering, Boulder, CO
Aoife O’Donovan’s vocals tracked by Darren Schneider at Audio Temple at Full Sail, Winter Park, FL
Arranged by The Becky Buller Band
Single cover art: Nicholas “NDTank” Tankersley
