Bottomless Soup by Mahout

This is a weird one. Greg Skillman explains…

Perfection is like happiness: as soon as you stop seeking it, you have it. An unfortunate number of people pursue happiness like it’s a bus they missed and are running down the street after. So it is with perfection. Artists can hold their work to a standard or ideal that simply doesn’t need to exist. Granted, there are many great songs that people lost weeks of sleep over, seeking that perfect note, chord change or word, and thank goodness. But, the freedom of accepting perfection as a natural process that can’t be avoided is just as glorious an epiphany. What can happen that shouldn’t happen the way it does?

I think with this album, both Adam and I found a piece of this, and found peace with this. We’ve both tortured ourselves in the past, and frankly, frequently tortured each other when we attempted to collaborate, trying to corral starlight rather than just letting it illuminate the moment. Our new attitude towards working together and what our joined efforts can be is like the difference between seeing a mounted butterfly collection and hitting the right field at the right time. You can follow the rules, kill beauty, then observe it, or you can watch it flutter around you and feel included.

All of the songs on here were fairly effortlessly assembled in one or two takes and/or written on the spot. If anything we did started to drag, we took it as a sign and put it aside for something else. Granted, this will not be everyone’s idea of perfect music, but it is unique, honest and bizarre. Regardless, this is a perfect album, once you get the definition right.

“Are not the processes of culture rapidly creating a class of supercilious infidels, who believe in nothing? Shall a man lose himself in countless masses of adjustments, and be so shaped with reference to this, that, and the other, that the simply good and healthy and brave parts of him are reduced and clipp’d away, like the bordering of a box in a garden?”

-Walt Whitman

NEW BONUS TRACK "Nawlins." I just unearthed this one-off gem that was recorded a year or two after the original album. We had no memory of actually recording this but stumbled across the files while doing some cleaning. This track features Joe Tepperman on bass and trombones.

Where Prog Rock meets Geek Rock. Adam Rabin is a Vermont songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who has also played with Elephants of Scotland, Mailbox, and musical improv troupe She Thicc. You can also hear Adam’s music on the podcasts: Improvised Weapons, Improv Overdrive, What The Hell Are You Watching, and Vermont Favorites.

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