Come Gather Round Us is a new band that started with a chance meeting in Los Angeles, found love in London and an old car—a 1990 Mazda 323 named Swansong to be exact. In 2003, singer-songwriter Catherine Feeny and singer/songwriter producer (and Feeny's eventual husband) Sebastian Rogers met in LA at her first solo CD's release party. Rogers, who was signed to Dreamworks at the time was so moved by the honesty and vulnerability in Feeny's voice and lyrics, he signed on to produce her second solo album, which was to be recorded in his native England. Over the course of the recording process, the two fell in love, but not without artistic bumps in the road. "We argued constantly," says Feeny. "We were coming from very different places creatively, at the time." But despite their differences, the two eked out a commonality and mutual respect that would later became the foundation for Come Gather Round Us.
Back to Swansong. In 2008 when Feeny's deal was up with EMI, she and Rogers decided on a fresh start in Portland, Oregon, but not before traveling 12,000 miles in the old Mazda, zigzagging the country and playing more than 40 house concerts. Soon after arriving in the Pacific Northwest, the two met and befriended guitarist Jon Neufeld (Black Prairie, Jackstraw) and Mike Danner (Trashcan Joe). Feeny and Rogers proposed a band venture to Neufeld and Danner, and while both were busy with other projects, they were intrigued by the music and ethic of Come Gather Round Us: raw creation rather than polish, content over style. In a one day session in January 2009, just weeks after their first rehearsal, the foursome recorded Remember Where You Are. They went on to sell over a 1,000 copies of the handmade self-released album in homes and venues all across the US, Mexico and Europe.
Come Gather Round Us' second album, Despair?, had a bit more breathing room. Recorded in the fall of 2009 in Portland in front of a small studio audience over the course of 4 days, Despair? (due to Rogers burgeoning production career), wasn't able to be mixed until the summer of 2010. After almost a year away from the recording, ideas came fast to the four about how to enhance, but keep the integrity of the original recording.
"We used a lot of restraint," said Rogers. "We had connected with so many exciting players in Portland, but we wanted add one strong element to each song, not six."
"We kept it simple, says Feeny. "We'd both been down that other road, and this was about exploring something different—making more with less."
Despair features all originals - four by Feeny, five by Rogers and one by Mike Danner - with songs that range from "Home" (Feeny), the stripped opener with just the right touches of accordian and a double bass about a struggle to find peace amid feelings of hopelessness and dislocation, to "Holy White Ghosty", a personal and open letter to a generation of political and social moderates and their untapped power. Other standouts include "Windchime" (Feeny), about the clarity that comes from a self-imposed trip to the deep end, "Freedom or Death" (Rogers), a calling out of American ethnocentrism and media censorship and "Frontline", starting at South by Southwest, a first person account of chasing the dream. With threads of raw, sensual and politically charged songwriting throughout, and helmed by two of the best unsung singer-songwriters of their generation, Despair? stands to be one of the strongest collection of original folk pop songs released in 2011.