New Alubm!

While wrapping up our debut EP as a duo in the fall of 2024, Craig and I began dreaming of playing and recording with a full band. But we were nearly out of band cash and definitely out of family time capital needed for the traditional recording process. We needed to get creative.

So in the darkness of December 2024 (while Aubrey was busy moving her family to an old farmhouse!), Craig assembled a dream team and started sending out google docs of song maps and demo recordings.

Joining us on this project was Scott Williams on electric bass, Kevin Himes on drums and percussion, and Ohio state fiddling champion Joe Lautzenheiser (who also happened to be Aubrey’s new neighbor). 

Because of life, none of us had a lot of time to practice together, so we made-do with a handful of piecemeal partial-band rehearsals before meeting up to rehearse all together once in the Akron studio before recording. As luck would have it, a heavy snowstorm and a last minute trip to Columbus thwarted Joe our fiddler from making the rehearsal!

Fortunately we were able to squeeze in a last minute practice with everyone crammed into Craig’s basement before the big day.

On January 28, 2025 we performed all eight songs live at Akron Recording Company with Ben Patrick at the control board. The old soap factory, converted into a recording studio, held a solid, grounding charm with a massive sandstone block foundation and giant exposed timbers. With set up time, sound checking, and tuning, we had enough time to run each song twice. A select few got a third pass.

A lot of credit goes out to Scott, Kevin, and Joe for their preparation. Each of them had a little under two months (during the busy holiday season to boot) to learn and practice their parts. The fact that five amateur musicians with plenty of other things going on in their lives were able to assemble and line up solid performances on the same takes is something akin to miraculous.

After selecting the best takes, we sent the files off to Bernie Nau at Peackfork Studios near Athens. Bernie is known for his work with old-time bands and has worked with a wide array of genres. He went above and beyond the traditional mixing / mastering tasks to help produce the tone and vibe we were going for, despite some of the challenges of live recording tracks (banjo coming through the guitar mic, etc.).

Our goal was to have an authentic, not over-produced album that reflects the humanity and grit of our process, while having enough of a polished sound that it communicates the vision of our stories.

We’re proud of what we’ve done, the team that helped get us here, and the friends we’ve made along the way.

Give it a listen on Bandcamp starting May 16, 2025, and let us know what you think!

If it moves you, share the album or a song with a friend. You can also earn Drifter patron saint status by supporting the project when you join our member-only area “Backstage” on Bandcamp. (Aside from feel-goods, Backstage membership also gets you perks like discounts on merch and bonus unreleased tracks).

And what does the next chapter hold for the Upstream Drifters? Through the gate we go…