Maggie Björklund: Coming Home

This solo album from Ms. Björklund, a pedal steel session musician, showed up in the Tape Op PO Box and being a fan of her chosen instrument I put it on expecting at best some instrumental Americana to pass the afternoon away. I was pleasantly surprised. My first thought was that this was a "lost" Calexico album. Then, upon checking the credits, lo and behold, our heroes Joey Burns and John Convertino played on every track and Tape Op's own Craig Schumacher recorded the basic tracks at WaveLab in Tucson, AZ. By the second track with Maggie and Mark Lanegan on vocals, I realized this record was no vanity album by a session musician, but a really strong album in it's own right by any standard applied to it. Jon Auer and Rachel Flotard also provide vocals on several songs. "Summer Romance" is a highlight of this very strong album, sounding like a long lost pop hit from the '60s that could have been recorded by Nancy Sinatra or Dusty Springfield. This is one of my favorite new records of the past year and I highly reccomend it. It was produced and mixed by Johnny Sangster and Mastered at RFI/CD by Ed Brooks. Additional recording was done by Shawn Simmons and Nick Nanry/Studio Litho, Seattle, WA; Johnny Sangster/Crackle & Pop, Seattle; Eric Weaver/Hobby Shop, Los Angeles; Johnny Stage/Hometown Studios, Copenhagen. Mixed at Electrokitty, Seattle.