On April 15th EP1 will be released; the debut offering from a new collaborative project featuring a great number of notable locals entitled SPKN (pronounced “Spoken”). The undertaking began when Steve Poulton asked for some tracks from Kyle Numann to start on something new and then proceeded to involve more and more creatives from inside and outside of his circle. If Poulton and Numann’s names don’t immediately ring bells, you should first start by familiarizing yourself with The Altered Statesman and Cloudmouth*, respectively.
Looking at the EP over on Bandcamp, the list of collaborators for a 4 song release is impressive to say the least. For fun, let’s have a look at the list:
- Cecilia Wright (Another Human) – cello
- David Jacques (John Prine) – acoustic bass
- G. Seth West (Gray Worry, sugar sk*-*lls) – synths
- Joe V. McMahan (engineer with a list too long for this format) – guitar
- Kyle Numann (Cloudmouth, Infinite Limb, Ambient Sundays) – synths, piano, drum machine
- Robert Crawford (Altered Statesman, Jack Silverman) – percussion
- Scott Mattingly (Altered Statesman, Kyle Hamlett, too many to name) – guitar
- Steve Poulton (Altered Statesman) – bass, keys
- TJ Larkin (Altered Statesman) – bouzouki, guitar
Nashville is no stranger to like-minded collaborations yielding fascinating results but that history only makes this even more interesting. Lines blur between generations of creators and styles. Case in point, after hearing these SPKN tracks come together, retired (and incredibly well known in his own right) engineer Jim DeMain was inspired to put together accompanying videos for each track. The first, “Fool or Hero,” is available to view right now.
News of the EP is exciting and, fortunately, we won’t have long to wait until it’s inside our ears. April 15th is right around the corner. Go pre-order it now.
* Numann has a number of other projects such as Infinite Limb and Ambient Sundays worthy of your time but Cloudmouth is where you should start.