New Month - Sorta New Music
This being the first of October, I should be yakking about the new "longings" but this will be, instead, my latest song of praise for Emm Gryner. Yes, I now have my very own copy of "The Great Lakes" and, as has happened so far with every single Emm disc I've gotten, I love it. I find that some of the recordings seem to be overstressed - as if the microphone was pushed beyond its limits. I'm not a sound engineer but I feel like my speakers are being over-driven even though the volume is not high enoguh to cause that. Then a song like "Saturday Night in Nowhere" comes on and it's lapidary and perfect. Then "Ex-boy" follows that and it's recorded so perfectly that I wonder about the songs that are 'stressed.' Emm knows what she's doing so I have to accept that the songs which catch in my ear are they way she wants them. So I'll just say I don't understand it, accept it and move on.
On the cover of the jewel box insert is the phrase "Limited Edition Homemade Album" which is explained inside thus:

"This album was written, recorded, mixed, printed, hand-stamped, stapled, embossed, cut, burned and packaged especially for you by me. Each copy is individually numbered. This copy belongs to: (my name here) D.I.Y or die, With love and thanks (signed) Emm Gryner."

My copy is #238. The disc istelf is stamped with a leaf pattern in green that is, well, delightful. I am so enthralled to have a copy of a disc where the artist is so incredibly intimately involved with the production of the entire work. My emotions about such an endeavor are mixed, though, as I think so highly of Emm's work that I can't understand why she's not a major, major star. She has the talent, she has the ability and she's beautiful. That's a complete package. How can someone so good, have the time to produce such personal output? I should just count my lucky stars and move along. But I'd still really like to see Emm hit it so big that she no longer has the time to do things like this.
Except for those fanatic fans who've made it a point to get everything Emm we could, right? Eh? We love you Emm. Don't forget us when you're playing stadium venues. OK?

I have to say, after this internet-enabled butt-smooch of the estimable Ms. Gryner, that I have the same feeling about Mike Cross. How someone of his talent never became a major, nation-wide star is beyond me.
UPDATE and APOLOGY: I was dead wrong in what I wrote above about the recording in "The Great Lakes." What I was hearing was the limitation of the (good but not great) speakers on my iMac. I played the album through my Bose Wave radio and it did not suffer the clipping I originally head. The recording is perfectly good. The mistake was mine.