Desert Etiquette

Heeding Dylan's advice that there's no better time to write than when sick, Kauffman wrote the lyrics for the Desert Etiquette in two days, then recorded the album over a concentrated period of 48 total hours. The process was sudden, pure - an explosion of inspiration that dictated being harnessed in real-time. Kauffman's friend and collaborator, Band of Horses bassist Bill Reynolds, mixed the record in a similarly off-the-cuff vein - live and spontaneously over two days, using a vintage Trident console. This new batch of songs is his most focused effort yet. These dedications to stillness and solitude transcend into repeat-listens rather comfortably. Desert Etiquette's lonely, shimmering songs were recorded without ornamentation or embellishment - often using less than eight tracks per song - and the imagery of Kauffman's lyrics shines through. Kauffman likens the stark result to Floating Action's version of Dylan's John Wesley Harding. With its pared down instrumentation, Desert Etiquette is distinctly human-scale, a melancholic elegy to the sublime, violent beauty of the American landscape that aims to "capture the feeling you get when you're in Big Sur." Floating Action is certainly a southern band - tinges of blues, gospel, and country lace most of their songs - but as Kauffman says, "We're a southern band whose hearts are in the west coast."