Reverie

As Henry explains, "I knew it should be stripped and lean but not demure, sonically speaking; in black and white, but not without red blood in its veins."

The record began to come to fruition when he and his fellow musicians convened in Henry's basement studio for three days of musical exploration. Next, the great guitarist Marc Ribot joined with "his particular and wiry racquet" for a few songs. There was some additional lost-world underscoring from singer Jean McClain, and a brief soliloquy given air and a smear of lipstick by Patrick Warren's pump organ. The final touch ocurred when the song "Piano Furnace" was sent to Dublin so singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, for whom Henry had just produced an album, could illuminate a few words with her indelible spirit.

The result is an album more lifelike - fuming and nervously ticking - than any before it. It's also a work that addresses, albeit subtly, some profound themes. "This album speaks about time," Henry elaborates, "The great river that reminds us we are buoyant after all, as its moving current lifts us by the chin and just off of the balls of our feet, while we strain to dig our toes into the sandy ground. I am not convinced that any song exists without some knowing nod in its direction. And so with Reverie I am nodding, then, to time, but also to all the love, hope, despair, and revelation that stands naked inside its weather."