Being Thoughtful by Smile

It took a while for us to finish our follow-up and first able-to-call-album recording „Being Thoughtful“ as we headed into the process with the goal to push our techniques, arrangements and production to a next level. If you try to do so within a still pretty basic homestudio, you will always be limited compared to the radio-productions nowadays and maybe the last fifty years.

But there have always been artists, trying to avoid the bittersweet taste of perfection as it is something that divides the fact of humanity and the imagination of something bigger (call it divine, fateful or whatever you want). And there have always been musicians, authors, philosophers and even politicians who thought about the miracle of life and all the enormous overwhelming amounts of personal, social and whatsoever structures that, at least so it seems to us, we need to handle our most ferocious weapon - our brain.

Every one of us is thoughtful, some maybe more than others, but that’s not the point of interest - it‘s the necessity of „being“ we want to point out with that new set of songs, which are perishable musical commentaries about the modern Western European society, emotional pictures about beloved persons and mantras of our self-driven navigation through life.

We are proud about the output of our seventeen month long journey and maybe some of you may find some enjoyment, relaxation or something else in our works.

Tracklist

1.	Outta Space	2:31

2.	Four Seasons	2:19

3.	On the Street	3:37

4.	(Walking) In the Heath	4:27

5.	Choir of the Damned	3:40

6.	Little Bird	4:03

7.	Immigrant Song	3:18

8.	An early Winter Journey	5:15

9.	Demonhunter	2:58

10.	Modern-Time Luddites	4:20

11.	Got this Feeling	3:16

12.	River Blues	2:54

13.	Girl with the Flute	3:25

14.	Gospel for Non-Believers	3:33

Credits

released October 31, 2021

Smile are:

Jón Ralfsson: Vocals, Bass, Blues Harp, Guitars, Percussion
Max Tristan: Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Vocals, Keyboard, Soprano Recorder

Special Guests (in order of appearance):

Robert: Drums on Outta Space, Four Seasons, Modern-Time Luddites, Got this Feeling & River Blues
David Ralfsson: Percussion on Four Seasons, On the Street, Little Bird, Immigrant Song, Demonhunter & Gospel for Non-Believers
Anni: additional Vocals on On the Street, Choir of the Damned, Demonhunter, Girl with the Flute & Gospel for Non-Believers
Lauhrín: Piano on (Walking) in the Heath, additional Keyboard on Little Bird & Gospel for Non-Believers

The cover photo was taken by Tristans‘ mum.

Sample on (Walking) in the Heath, written and produced by Lukestar.
Sound recordings on (Walking) In the Heath, Immigrant Song & Demonhunter taken from bigsoundbank.com

Recorded in Unterlüß, Berlin, Cologne and Linkenheim. Produced and barely mastered with WaveLab by Max Tristan.

Dedicated to the one and only mother.

momo04

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