For all its carefully constructed textures, The Lodge In Miller County (Easy Does It) retains the intimacy of a batch of songs written alone on keyboard or guitar. At the time, the artist who records as Brother Bird was reeling from a divorce and moving between friends’ guest rooms and her parents’ basement in Chesterfield, Mo., trying to make sense of what she now describes as the most painfully necessary year of her life. Fittingly, Caroline Glaser and her collaborators often returned to the rawness of her early demos, preserving imperfections or rebuilding arrangements around elements they couldn’t rightly discard.
Glaser initially worked with Owen Lewis (Matt Maeson, Old Sea Brigade) in Nashville. When the sessions reached an impasse, she brought in longtime collaborator Jamie Martens, whose hip-hop perspective rebooted the project. Now living in Atlanta, Glaser enlisted fellow Atlantan Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra’s to offer his expertise during the album’s final stages. The songs that emerged play off early experiments with drum machines and synths, layering on strings, woodwinds, Mellotron and other bits of atmospheric detail.
Glaser guides us through each track on The Lodge In Miller County.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “The Lodge In Miller County”
“I had such a hard time naming these songs. This one had a million working titles before I landed on the album name.I was really into Casiotone For The Painfully Alone at the time—and remain so. The drum machine in ‘Old Panda Days’ was a giant inspiration for this one. I made a similar loop, sat down at my Korg and wrote the whole thing to it. The lyrics changed quite a bit as the album took shape, but the bones were there.”
2) “Bride”
“This was also heavily influenced by another song. I was on a long drive and had Stratosphere by Duster playing. I kept looping ‘Constellations,’ completely entranced by the droning guitar line and kind of sleepy groove. I have a super-windy, muffled voice memo of me attempting to write these lyrics in the car. I got home, picked apart the synth line on my keyboard and let it loop to one of those built-in drum kits in Logic. Of all the songs on this album, I’m most excited to play this one live with a band.”
3) “Chameleon”
“I’ve said a lot about this song, but not very much about recording it. I had my friend Rowen Merrill arrange strings for several songs on this album, and this was the very first one she did. I was living in her house at the time. She and her partner, Thomas Luminoso (who’s toured with me a bunch through the years and also played guitar on this record), were living in L.A. part time. We were all in Nashville that week, though, so I had the rare pleasure of getting to hear the arrangements come to life from the kitchen table. She put an insane quartet together in Nashville. We recorded it all later that week with Owen Lewis at Fatback Studios in Nashville.”
4) “Pariah”
“I ended up taking this album to my good pal and collaborator Jamie Martens about a year into the recording process. I’d hit a pretty gnarly wall and was in dire need of fresh ears. He was the dude for the job. He brought such new life into each song. “Pariah” was one of the first that really clicked. He has more of a hip-hop background, which made our gut instincts vary quite a bit. I think that’s ultimately what revived these songs, though. We’re also both pretty soul-tied to the Manchester Orchestra camp, so we’ve been learning from similar textbooks. We were lucky enough to have Tim Very play on this one before his sudden passing earlier this year. Special tune.”
5) “Prodigy”
“All the little soundbites throughout the record are from old family videos. The one that starts this song is insane and will always make me laugh. I’m four or five years old, wearing a red, floor-length peacoat, mittens, sweatpants and striped socks, holding a pair of 3D glasses up to my face and screaming at my grandma, ‘You’re not looking at me!’ Then I storm off into my parents’ yard. There’s so much of myself woven into these characters, songs and their stories. The desire to be seen, but the fear of being perceived—there’s no greater representation of that than five-year-old me in this video.”
6) “Dirt”
“This was the third single off the record, and it probably gave me the most anxiety to release. The words have a little more bite to them than the others. It touches on generational dysfunction and trauma. It’s an internal dialog between my present and past selves, an attempt at breaking certain cycles while acknowledging that some will never be fully broken. At times, it’s a look at what could’ve been—and a complete rejoicing in knowing that it doesn’t have to be.”
7) “Evaporate”
“This was one of my favorite early days of recording. Elliott Blaufuss came by Fatback, and he, Owen and I dedicated the entire afternoon to woodwinds and a Mellotron. Elliott is one of those people who can just sort of play anything. He added so much character and texture to this one. He and I also recorded the lead line in ‘Prodigy’ that day. We built a little kazoo/saxophone/flute choir. I stayed on the kazoo.”
8) “Patient”
“To me, this song carries the most weight. It follows two characters in a domestic dispute that turns violent. The person who inflicted the harm (‘bloodied the blade’) ends up putting the other one on trial, where they’re ultimately taken away to an asylum. Most of the words come from that person’s internal dialogue—disoriented, guilty and ‘sorry.’”
9) “Supermarket”
“This existed as just piano and vocal for a long while. Jamie spent hours and hours adding these super-lush, subtle little colors that make you feel like the whole song is kind of dancing around in your brain.”
10) “Landlord”
“Thus was the first song I brought to other people. I made a demo with Owen and Jamie Dick in Nashville, which resulted in the most gnarly case of demo-itis I’ve ever had. I just loved it so much. It really opened the door to what I wanted this album to be. It was undoubtedly the most frustrating song to figure out, though. Jamie and I pretty much started this one from scratch, then slowly incorporated elements from the original back in. We spent the final months with Andy Hull at his place. Having another set of fresh ears there at the end was a real gift, especially on this song. And, especially, his ears.”
11) “Spectacle”
“The lead vocal and guitar are a live take from the demo. We pretty much just doubled them and added Andy’s vocal. I’m really happy we leaned into the imperfections and simplicity. I think it adds to the charm. It was probably my favorite to write. It’s essentially comparing gossip to gluttony.”
12) “Pessimist”
“It’s about fighting for something that’s already gone—mourning the loss of what you thought you had while still seemingly ‘in it.’ The end becomes this chaotic, sort of manic-sounding instrumental section, layered with lyrics and moments from previous tracks on the record. Ultimately, it ends back in the car, looping into the intro—the arrival of ‘The Lodge.’”
See Brother Bird live.
