In a Lincoln Log cabin in deep rural Michigan live and work Micah Middaugh, Trevor Hobbs, and Andréa Moreno-Beals. This is Breathe Owl Breathe. The trio\’s new album, Magic Central, will be released on Hometapes on IN Dember , 2010. More than just a record, Breathe Owl Breathe have created a timeless aural cartogram of feeling, soul, skill, and story. You could have found it in the attic. It could have dropped from outer space. The best way to learn about Magic Central is to listen. The second best way is to read what the band has to say about it. This story is theirs.

\”A lot of songs on Magic Central were born out of our experiences living at the cabin (our home). Many of the characters on the album were a reflection of what we were going through at the time. Micah had lived there by himself for quite some time, working on setting up his print making studio, and battling keep the place warm through the winter. Trevor and Andréa would come up to the cabin when they could (before and after shows and small tours), finding Micah mixing inks and sustaining himself on peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.

Eventually, we were all there together, and the cabin became our refuge for making art and music together. The place transformed from solely being Micah’s print studio into a place for recording, recreating (there’s a badminton net in the front yard), working on art projects, and living. The separation between the printing press, the kitchen, the light table, and the old piano was starting to blur…printed t-shirts by the drumset, mail under the toy piano, marimba next to the dart board, cello leaning against the light table… There was never a time when an instrument or an old book was too far out of reach. At one point, we used the field of fresh snow as a surface to project Last of the Mohicans, and watched from the upstairs window [Daniel Day Lewis and the triumphant music echoing in the valley…”No matter how long it takes, I will find you!”].

The cabin slowly morphed into Magic Central — a place where there is no distinction between working, creating, songwriting, practicing, and playing. So we started recording a lot at the cabin… on our 16 track, on cassette tapes, and VHS. Trevor would spend the late hours playing piano, and Andréa would be downstairs on cello. Micah was always recording us from another room while improvising lyrics over our music. Other times, Micah would go for a run and come back with a lyric or an idea for a combination of instruments, and they’d eventually turn into songs.

In those initial months together, we came up with a ton of song ideas, constantly working with what we were surrounded by. Late in the summer (2009), we started recording with Jim Roll in the studio. Many of the songs were still simple ideas when we started laying them down — maybe just a lyric, or a banjo or piano line — and our goal was to let the studio shape the song arrangements.

We knew we wanted to do the instrumentation for the album all ourselves — like doing our own stunts. We wanted the challenge of digging deep with the instruments we were familiar with [as well as the instruments we didn’t know well at all]. In the studio, we were constantly trying out different instrumentation [and recording approaches], trying to take advantage of the opportunity that the studio offers to collage songs together. The goal was to get as much recorded as possible, and spend the following months sculpting out an album.\”