Inside the theme of shattered realities that wires the album together, even elliptical songs somehow become direct. When we were in studio and having trouble figuring out the angle, I thought, 'Why don't we use the piano, and assign each person a part of what I'm playing?' That song used my piano part almost as if we were writing an arrangement." The way that I connected to the song was by playing it on the piano. Describing the recording session for it, Pattengale says, "That was one of the days we had maybe ten people in studio. In one of their biggest departures, "Nothing Is Real," neither of The Milk Carton Kids plays guitar. "It's a terrifying place to be," says Ryan, "when everything seemed to be going fine." The stunned "Mourning in America" holds up an atmospheric Polaroid from the Midwest-as Ryan explains it, "what it feels like to live in a country you thought you knew." "Just Look at Us Now" rejects easy sentiment, suggesting that hindsight only reveals how badly things have turned out. The album ricochets between familiar styles and experimental songs. If previous Milk Carton Kids productions recall plaintive missives from a faraway hometown, these songs sound more intimate, like a tragic midnight knock at your front door. Mixed by Pattengale, the album was mastered by Kim Rosen. Musicians who joined them there included Brittany Haas on violin and mandolin, Paul Kowert and Dennis Crouch on bass, Jay Bellerose on drums, Levon Henry on clarinet and saxophone, Nat Smith on cello, Pat Sansone on piano, mellotron, and Hammond organ, Russ Pahl on pedal steel and other guitars and Lindsay Lou and Logan Ledger as additional singers. Produced by Joe Henry and engineered by Ryan Freeland, "All the Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn't Do" was recorded in October 2017 in the Sun Room at House of Blues Studio in Nashville. Two-part harmonies ride acoustic guitars high above the haunting landscape created by the presence of the band, as if Americana went searching for a lost America. Recent events provided a bruising background for the record, yet the project is somehow bigger than any personal grief. Though they didn't approach the new album conceptually, a theme of shattered realities began to emerge out of the songs that sparked to life. (He is cancer-free now, and accidentally broke his cigarette habit in the process.) Pattengale’s relationship of seven years ended, and he found himself unexpectedly needing surgery for cancer. National politics left Ryan feeling disoriented and mournful. Ryan is now the father of two children and works as a producer on "Live from Here with Chris Thile," the reboot of "A Prairie Home Companion." A break from years of non-stop touring, Ryan says, has yielded "space outside of the band that gives us perspective on what the band is."īut it's not just the addition of the band here that creates something new. Pattengale has moved to, and is now producing records in Nashville. Since their last studio album, "Monterey" (ANTI- 2015), life has changed dramatically for The Milk Carton Kids. "It was liberating to know we wouldn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars."
"Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a bigger sonic palette," says Ryan. There arose some sort of need for change." "We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we'd been before. "We wanted to do something new," Pattengale says. The new project marks the first time that acoustic duo Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale have brought a band into the studio with them. Waltzing into disaster and its aftermath, The Milk Carton Kids' "All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn't Do" arrives from ANTI- Records on June 29. Tuesday, April 17th, 2018 The Milk Carton Kids Bio (2018) by Andrea Pitzer
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