Our gratitude goes to the kind people who have bought and listened to The Dissolving Room. We’re in the midst of working on our next record, this time holed up in the studio of Glass Eye-alum Brian Beattie, who produced the upcoming sophomore release by Will and Jonathan’s other band, Okkervil River as well as music by the likes of Daniel Johnston, the Dead Milkmen, Kathy McCarty, Ed Hall, Sincola, and Brenda Kahn.

When we first started work on The Dissolving Room in Jeff Hoskins’ studio last June, it rained every day and the leaky roof allowed puddles to collect in the corners - one day we came in and found a snare drum half-full of water. If you listen carefully, you can hear all the rain pouring down. This time, coincidentally, Brian’s studio/shed can’t always keep out the sound of birds, so, in addition to our new drummer/vibraphonist Thor, on this record Shearwater features scores of additional unpaid non-union background vocalists whose contributions weren’t always asked for but were usually received happily.

Other changes on this album include the addition, on some tracks, of Austin’s great improvisational chamber trio Cinders as well as some new instrumentation, including Wurlitzer, pump and Hammond organs, vibes, some horns, and the debut of Kim bowing the bass. Just for this record, Will wrote the best song of his life and, through careful revision, shaped it into the second best song of his life. The album will contain said song as well as what may be our longest song yet; clocking in at an epic four minutes. Sadly, there are, thusfar, no plans to cover Tom Lehrer’s moving ode “Smut,” and its immortal stanza

that etches itself so easily on the brain will remain to gather dust in the hinterland of uncovered songs until lifted high into the sun of rediscovery by voices more honeyed than ours.

But back to the subject at hand: all I’ll say more on the topic of the new record is that it literally begins where The Dissolving Room left off and it contains more similarly-named songs than you can shake a rolled-up copy of “Leg Show” at.

Also look for EPs of varied stripe in the indefinite future.