Earthen Ground

Our debut record, 15 years in the making. I (Alec, the band's hopelessly pedantic frontperson) started writing for this record in late 2002 as a means of exploring the kind of music I could only hear in my head. After innumerable life experiences, stops, starts, branching pathways, and personal tragedies, I saw fit to return to these songs in 2013 with the intent of finally finishing what was to be my life's work up until that point, mostly as a tribute to my late father, who had passed away in 2012, and to see if I could actually do it. The goal was to create a big, expansive record that encompassed an entire "other-world" filled with its own sense of danger, beauty, and ugliness in equal measure, and to make the kind of record my father and I would have loved to listen to together. I feel like I accomplished these goals. I put every bit of myself (and a not-inconsiderable amount of money) into this record.

All is Phantom would eventually be released in June of 2018 by a record label that did not have our best interests at heart, and I was and remain disappointed that it was not promoted in a way that I felt (and still feel) it truly deserved. Still, it has taken on a life of its own, and I can sleep well at night with the knowledge that I accomplished everything I set out to do on levels both aesthetic and personal. I knew, then, that the work was truly beginning, and that the true challenge would be to follow it up. - Alec