The Department of the West by Deborah Crooks available everywhere now!
California songwriter Deborah Crooks announces the release of her
fourth full-length album The Department of the West (Dec. 6, 2019). A follow-up to her 2016 EP Beauty Everywhere and her work with the band
Bay Station, which released Other Desert Cities in 2018, Crooks
continues to explores themes of natural history (“River Stones”),
family (“All Signs”), and the #metoo movement (“Long Roads”), while
also addressing the nature of land ownership and Native American
history (“Department of the West” “What the Land Will Tell You”) and
relationship (“Let the River do the Running”).
Crooks co-produced The Department of the West with Danny Allen (Baby
Buck Studio, High Diving Horses) and recorded at John Vanderslice’s
Tiny Telephone Studio in San Francisco. Allen also played guitars,
ukulele and banjo on the album, and was joined by Mike Stevens (The
Uptones, Sun Kil Moon) on drums and percussion, Kevin T. White (Chuck
Prophet, Shelby Lynne) on bass. Longtime collaborator Kwame Copeland
(Bay Station, Straw Coyotes) as well as Heather Davison (Loretta
Lynch), Maurice Tani and Maryam Qudus also contributed backing vocals.
The recording was mixed and engineered by Qudus (Tune-Yards, Kronos Quartet) and mastered by Piper Payne (Infrasonic Sound).
California songwriter Deborah Crooks announces the release of her
fourth full-length album The Department of the West (Dec. 6, 2019). A follow-up to her 2016 EP Beauty Everywhere and her work with the band
Bay Station, which released Other Desert Cities in 2018, Crooks
continues to explores themes of natural history (“River Stones”),
family (“All Signs”), and the #metoo movement (“Long Roads”), while
also addressing the nature of land ownership and Native American
history (“Department of the West” “What the Land Will Tell You”) and
relationship (“Let the River do the Running”).
Crooks co-produced The Department of the West with Danny Allen (Baby
Buck Studio, High Diving Horses) and recorded at John Vanderslice’s
Tiny Telephone Studio in San Francisco. Allen also played guitars,
ukulele and banjo on the album, and was joined by Mike Stevens (The
Uptones, Sun Kil Moon) on drums and percussion, Kevin T. White (Chuck
Prophet, Shelby Lynne) on bass. Longtime collaborator Kwame Copeland
(Bay Station, Straw Coyotes) as well as Heather Davison (Loretta
Lynch), Maurice Tani and Maryam Qudus also contributed backing vocals.
The recording was mixed and engineered by Qudus (Tune-Yards, Kronos Quartet) and mastered by Piper Payne (Infrasonic Sound).