In many ways I owe this compilation to Jenn Wasner. It was her idea after all. Back in the spring, only a few weeks after Splice released The Old Lonesome Sound, I was already kicki ng around ideas for a follow-up. I knew I wanted the second compilation to be exclusively Baltimore focused, but I hadn't quite worked out an idea that I liked. After a show at the Metro Gallery, I asked Wasner what she thought of doing a covers compilation of If Children, the first Wye Oak album. "Why make it just about us?" she said. "Just get a bunch of Baltimore bands to cover a bunch of other Baltimore bands." Looking back I don't know how I hadn't already thought of it. But I knew right then and there that was it, that was the next project.
From the dancy oddball weirdness of Dan Deacon and the Wham City crowd, to the gorgeous synth-pop of Beach House and the fiery wailing of Arbouretum and Pontiak, to folksters Small Sur and Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, to the DJs tearing up the Baltimore Club scene and the noisy post-punk bands blaring from the Copycat and the H&H, Baltimore has the best and most diverse music scene in the country. And it's a close-knit community -- you'd know that from any show, the liner notes of any album. Go to Whartscape, watch Dan Higgs share the same stage as Celebration, watch Height and Double Dagger and Future Islands fill a MICA parking lot. We're a city made for musicians, for record-store junkies, for the kid who can list off every Smiths b-side. And I hope this compilation adds something to the mix.
Many thanks to Matthew Leffler-Schulman at Mobtown Studios for his fine mastering help and to Kathy Fahey for her beautiful cover art.
--Zach Kaufmann (Oct. 21, 2009)
