Mapache - Swinging Stars - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In the past, Mapache recording sessions have been pretty laid-back affairs, with friends coming and going, the sessions starting and stopping at the band's discretion-as relaxed a process as the immaculately sunny vibes that their four albums would suggest. But on their dynamic and ambitious fifth album of cosmic-folk, Swinging Stars, Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch decided to take a trip and hunker down somewhere particularly special. InchIt's a pretty impactful place,Inch Finch says of the Panoramic House, the artist retreat where Swinging Stars was recorded. InchIt's kind of dramatic. It's a castle-y building on a hill, way up overlooking the Bay.Inch Located in Stinson Beach in Marin County, California, the Panoramic House has recently hosted acts like My Morning Jacket, the War on Drugs, and Cate Le Bon, and was the ideal combination of scenic beauty and self-imposed confinement to allow Mapache to settle in for their most cohesive album yet. InchThat environment yields itself to a higher level of focus because everybody's together for a week,Inch says Finch, explaining that the band stayed there during the process, sharing every bit of their time and energy on a shared vision. InchWe were all captive. No one could escape,Inch he laughs. Swinging Stars, an album of calm, second-nature swagger, is the natural result of a band that's existed in one form or another for it's founders' entire adult lives. Finch and Blasucci first met as students at La Cañada High School, just north of Los Angeles, where they both had a guitar class InchThere wasn't much supervision or anything,Inch remembers Blasucci. InchIt was really nice. And we got to just play guitars together.Inch