One of the spring releases we’re most excited for is Medeski Martin & Wood’s The Woodstock Sessions (Vol. 2) collaborative album with guitarist Nels Cline . As a refresher, the foursome came together to record the LP on August 27, 2013 at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY in front of an intimate gathering of 75 lucky ticket holders. MMW+C’s session was part of a new series that aims to bring established and emerging recording artists together with their fans in the recording studio to capture inspired, one-off performances.

At Applehead Studios the quartet treated fans to nearly two hours of improvised music spanning two sets. The Applehead production/engineering team of Michael Birnbaum, Chris Bittner and Kevin Salem edited and mixed the music MMW+C laid down into nine separate tracks. “Michael Birnbaum from Applehead Studios and I had been talking about this for over two years. We’re all trying to figure out what to do in this crazy music business, how to keep things going & above water, how to keep the music real and keep the connection with the audience real,” explained John Medeski in a statement. “Applehead Studios is a great space. Beyond just being a recording facility it sounds so good live that we thought we could find a way to play for people here and get something special out of it.”

“There are a lot of different ways to make records. Too often, the process gets elongated, and I’ve made many records on recent years where no two musicians played in the same room at the same time. Michael and I sat down as producers and decided that we wanted to create a situation that would foster productivity and a modern organic approach to recording,” said Salem. “These are recording sessions, pure, simple and real. For the attendees, they get to see musicians in their creative habitat. The artists get the benefit of simplicity and urgency that comes with live recording. And as producers, we get to craft something really one-of-a-kind. Putting people in a room changes the dynamic, and that yields a tangible result that makes the sessions different from even standard live studio recording and certainly different from concert recordings.”

The album comes out on Tuesday, but today we’re pleased to premiere the dreamy, ethereal track “Cinders”:

The Woodstock Sessions (Vol. 2) is currently available for pre-order.