Different Lens: Rarities and Demos, 2019-2022

by John Calvin Abney

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Yimmy Kil JCA has released a lot of super cool stuff on this platform. This by far is my favorite. Always a writer full of such lyrical depth and emotion, these songs recorded in their bare forms and early stages give listeners a real insight to his writing process. JCA is one of the most talented human beings in music right now, give him a listen. Buy up all his albums. Hopefully you bought this on Sept 1st. If you are seeing this I’m pretty sure you did. Favorite track: Different Lens (take 1).

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1.	Evening Tide (alternate version) 03:47	buy track
2.	Watch Me Go Back In Time (alternate version) 03:49	buy track
3.	Holy Golden West (alternate version) 04:18	buy track
4.	In The Marketplace 03:17	buy track
5.	No Place 03:08	buy track
6.	Fold My Map (acoustic demo) 03:30	buy track
7.	Be Careful Coming Up (acoustic demo) 02:34	buy track
8.	Sleepwalkers (alternate version demo) 02:59	buy track
9.	Different Lens (take 1) 03:28	buy track
10.	Different Lens (take 2) 03:16	buy track
11.	Familiar Ground (acoustic demo) 03:46	buy track
12.	By Your Leave (rough acoustic demo) 03:08	buy track
13.	Forget Me At The Shoreline (acoustic demo) 02:42	buy track
14.	Holy Golden West (incomplete acoustic demo) 03:37	buy track
15.	Monterrey Moonlight (bedroom demo) 02:33	buy track
16.	Shine Like a Friend (acoustic demo) 03:18	buy track
17.	Signs of Weather (acoustic demo) 03:45	buy track
18.	Signs of Weather (lost tape demo) 03:48	buy track
19.	The Contractor and Travel Agent (acoustic demo) 04:14	buy track
20.	Things Add Up 03:45	buy track
21.	Things Add Up (acoustic demo) 03:20	buy track
22.	Things Add Up (full band demo) 04:00	buy track
23.	Tokyo City Rain (acoustic tape demo) 03:07	buy track
24.	When This Blows Over (acoustic demo) 04:12	buy track
25.	Watch Me Go Back In Time (acoustic demo) 03:39	buy track

about

A compiled collection from the digital and analog archives, Different Lens contains a selection of the countless demos, b-sides, alternate takes, and sketches created during the years 2019-2022. Written and recorded across the American southwest, Sierra Nevada, Oklahoma, California, and Texas, each track is a brief travelogue that takes from the geography and the itinerant state of mind I found myself in.

Many of these songs became the roadmap that lead me to craft Familiar Ground and Tourist, two records that have boundless concepts and motifs in common with each other, not to mention they were captured and finished as I was in motion between places more often than not. In their unmastered nascence, the rough edges, missed notes, hesitation in lyric, and laughter between verses show the sketch before the painting, so to speak.

As John Moreland and I collaborated on the final versions and alternate takes over the long distances via fiber optics and intuition, I discovered a world of color and sound that live brightly in my memory and the mediums they were pressed onto. If you listen close, you can hear the songs taking shape and their first steps as I stumbled through the dark and the southwest, towards the coast.

-JCA, 08/30/2023

credits

released September 1, 2023

All songs written and performed by John Calvin Abney
(Bullets in the Chamber Folk, BMI 2023)

Personnel:
John Calvin Abney: lead vocals, bgv, acoustic guitar, synthesizers, harmonica, mellotron, Wurlitzer, engineering
John Moreland: background vocals, drums, bass, engineering

Things Add Up, Things Add Up (full band demo), In The Marketplace were engineered and mixed by John Moreland

These tracks were recorded on an iPhone 8, a Tascam 424 tape machine, a 2014 MacBook, and a mysterious French classroom tape recorder.

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about

John Calvin Abney Austin, Texas

alternative folksinger. instrumentalist. atx/tulsa.

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