I read this great review of No Octo­ber the oth­er day…lots of nice things being said about the record and the pro­duc­tion, but my favorite part had to be this:

Record­ed in a barn (seri­ous­ly) in Buf­fa­lo, Minn., with a ton of won­der­ful musi­cal friends assist­ing … The most impres­sive part of the deal is that Olson is nev­er buried by his friends. They sim­ply help to bring to life this inspired batch of songs.

… No Octo­ber is roots music at its best, as Olson com­bines an under­cur­rent of blues through­out the project and lay­ers coun­try and folk over that in an amal­gam that is wire-weld­ed airtight.

That empha­sis is mine. When Dave and I were round­ing up musi­cians for the project, the word ​“empa­thet­ic” came up more than once. It seems like kind of a pre­ten­tious word, but it tru­ly fits the tal­ents of every­one on this record — that is, almost every­thing they play makes oth­er peo­ple sound good.