Phish - Farmhouse May 18, 2000 - wceb 90.5 Soundbytes By Staff Album Review - Farmhouse ALBUM OF THE WEEK Fresh from the triumph of Big Cypress -- the biggest Millennium concert of Y2K, on the Seminole Reservation in Florida -- Phish release their new studio album Farmhouse. The dozen songs on Farmhouse were recorded in a 200 year-old barn on Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio's property. The album captures a band whose songwriting and playing are fresher, more confident and more accessible than ever before. "Welcome, this is a farmhouse." With those straightforward words of introduction, followed closely by some dada-esque couplets about "cluster flies," Phish invite listeners to make themselves at home inside their latest, greatest creation (and eleventh album), Farmhouse. Brimming with resurgent energy and quiet confidence, it captures one of the world's most innovative rock bands at a creative peak. Following a more introspective and experimental spell of album-making, represented by the studio albums Billy Breathes and Story of the Ghost, Farmhouse hits the listener as a confident, focused set of songs with an underlying subtext of positivity. Recording commenced in October 1999, hot on the heels of a particularly satisfying season of touring, and extended through Thanksgiving. Then came a month of touring capped off by the group's historic Millennium concerts at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades, which provided a spark that fired them up still further when they returned to the studio for the mixing and overdubbing stages in January. For the first time in their seventeen-year career, Phish truly felt at home in the studio, and that's because they literally were at home. Farmhouse was recorded in Trey's refurbished 150-year-old barn on the edge of the group's hometown of Burlington, Vermont. This enabled Phish to work in a more casual environment, without an expensive hourly meter ticking or artificial deadline looming. In fact, the sessions took on the tone of a spirited get-together, if not an actual party, much of the time. For a taste of the proceedings, a snippet of the bantering that went on around the soundboard was recorded on the sly by Trey and tacked on as an ambient coda to "Twist." "There's a certain relaxed feel that came from recording not in a conventional studio but in one that we built," affirms Page McConnell. "It's got a great vibe. We recorded this album much more quickly as a result of being relaxed about it." That homey, pressure-free atmosphere allowed them to proceed with a purposeful intensity that resulted in some of the sharpest songwriting and most cohesive playing of their career. These are rock-solid songs built around grooves of varying flavors and tempos, from the shuffling railroad rhythms of "Back on the Train" to the exuberant bounce of "Gotta Jibboo" to the deep, bottom-heavy space-funk of "Sand" to the sticks-on-snare paradiddles that drive "Heavy Things." There are moments of delicacy and lyricism, too, such as the ruminative, sweetly melodic "Bug" and the orchestrations that weave in and out of "Dirt." Farmhouse also includes two instrumentals: "The Inlaw Josie Wales," a gorgeous acoustic gem that finds Phish augmented by Bela Fleck on banjo and Jerry Douglas on dobro, and "First Tube," a first take of a challenging, lengthy composition recorded on the first day of tracking for the album - and a harbinger of the unleashed creativity that would be a hallmark of these memorable sessions. "We were coming right off a tour, got a bunch of people all around us, and had a big party," enthuses Anastasio. "We were having a breakthrough in terms of musical solidity and simplicity." One aspect in which the album departs from its predecessors is that Anastasio assumed the role of coproducer. Instead of a well-meaning but increasingly untenable four-way democracy, each member played to his instrumental strengths on Farmhouse, while Trey was given latitude to realize the vision he had for the album. "After Story of the Ghost, where we actually had elaborate voting schemes to choose what went on the record, some of us ended up thinking that the democratic process was problematic because nobody got to take their ideas and run with them," admits Mike Gordon. "With this album, Trey said he wanted to be able to stretch out and make some decisions without having to check with everybody. With music, learning to get your ego out of the way makes it better, so in a sense surrendering the democratic process was a way for us to do that. As a result, we were better able to be ourselves, to do our thing and jam and have a loose attitude and come up with good-sounding songs." For his own part, Anastasio appreciated being allowed a leadership role on this album. "Nobody was threatened by the fact that I had all these arrangements in my head. I had written all these songs and had a pretty clear vision of how I wanted them to sound, " he explains. "The other guys let me step forward, and they were cool about it." In terms of writing, most of the songs were collaborations between Anastasio and longtime songwriting partner Tom Marshall, who wrote the lion’s share of the album lyrics. Seven of the tracks (Bug, Back on the Train, Heavy Things, Gotta Jibboo, The Inlaw Josie Wales, Sand, First Tube) were originally written for Trey’s first solo tour in the spring of 1999, eventually finding their place in the Phish repertoire. The co-producer on the album was Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Spacehog), while engineer John Siket worked the board and brought along his eclectic assortment of vintage gear. An organic, collaborative vibe between Bryce, John and Trey took hold early in the proceedings, and led to the bold excitement that ripples throughout the album. Onstage and in the studio, Phish continues to push the envelope of creativity and innovation to its limit. They are one of the premier live bands in the world; no other act is capable of attracting a single-event audience of 75,000 like Phish did with their Millennium concert weekend in Florida. On the road, they've managed to reach and hold onto a large, loyal and growing audience, and they've never betrayed that trust by resorting to corporate sponsorship or usurious ticket prices. In the recording arena, they consistently raise the bar with self-imposed challenges. In terms of musicianship, they are peerless when it comes to the art of improvisation in a rock context (jamming, for short). All the while, they've held fast to their principles and stuck to their guns, carving a path for themselves that's diverged from the typically compromised routes to success in the music business. Farmhouse finds Phish hitting on all cylinders as a people's band with a larger agenda. "We feel like we're part of a bigger picture," concludes Anastasio, "like we're the soundtrack to this unique and forward-thinking scene, and that's what's fueling us."