Shedding Feathers is one part A Singer of Songs and one part Craven Canary (and Craven Canary is one part of French Films About Trains), and we might just have something coming very soon from them (ok, we definitely do). But until then, enjoy this artifact from their humble beginnings…

Lieven {A Singer of Songs} & Aubben {Craven Canary} spent an afternoon in a crumbling farmstead, set upon a hill in the middle of a field and trees. After absorbing the semblance of the home, {or what it once held} the two paced the rotting floors, Lieven with guitar in hand, Aubben jotting down lyrics in her journal as they came to them. After an hour or so, they had a song.

For an afternoon, they slipped into the shoes of the hypothetical weary and regretful midwestern man that had once pioneered here to break the land, and build this house with his own hardworking hands. The man whose blood, sweat and tears stained every fiber of this barren house, making a shelter and haven for himself and his bride.

Reflecting upon the time lost with his now deceased wife, and acknowledging the honest struggle that makes it's nest in any home and family, he is overcome with the honesty and reality of his days past. The house is almost biting and bitter toward him.

The song was written and the story began to fill the cracks of the crumbling concrete like the mortar of the house's brick foundation, that now buckled under neglect.
It was time to set up the equipment and sing. Shivering and crowded in the creaking stairwell, Aubben & Lieven recorded their song in honest-to-goodness raw form.

This is the film taken from that day.

This bare-bones recording, the lyrics scribbled onto the cracking paint at the side of the stairs along with this faded and speckled film are our souvenir to take from an unforgettable day at a long forgotten farmhouse.