Paula Baymiller ’75, administrative assistant in the art library, created the layout and design and took the photos for the CD booklet, including this photo of Bridget Matros and Josh Ritter. Matros, Mendilow, and Ritter Record Rough-Edged CD By Sara Marcus
	Guy Mendilow sings and plays guitar, frame drum, shaker, Japanese singing bowl, triangle, wind-wand, saucepan top, and dharbuka on the recording. PHOTOGRAPH BY PAULA BAYMILLER		MAY 14, 1999--Today marks the release of a CD featuring the musical talents of Bridget Matros, a sophomore from Milford, Pennsylvania; Josh Ritter, a senior from Moscow, Idaho; and Guy Mendilow, a junior from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, collectively known as Voices from the Attic. Produced by Chris Baymiller, assistant director of the student union, the CD, 6206 Ellen Ave., contains 40 minutes of energetic originals and covers performed by the ensemble. The story of 6206 Ellen Ave. began last summer at a union hall outside of town, where Bridget Matros sang and played guitar for a group of visiting welfare-rights activists. Baymiller heard her voice and immediately knew he wanted to record her. "Chris drove me home," Matros says. "He kept asking me about my singing and recording aspirations and experiences, like I was some kind of rock star, discovered. It was hilarious. I thought he was nuts." That fall, as Baymiller listened to folk singer and guitarist Josh Ritter open for singer-songwriter Gillian Welch in the 'Sco, he thought Ritter and Matros might work well together. So in early November Baymiller invited the two musicians into his office in the Wilder Student Union and got right to the point. "I said I wanted to record them," Baymiller says. "I told them I'd pay for it and arrange for the studio time. The only restrictions were that the two of them had to play together and that Josh couldn't record anything he had already recorded for other projects. They agreed right away." Baymiller says he's thrilled with the results. "I had no idea what was going to happen. I brought together these two random souls who didn't even know each other and asked them if they wanted to work together. It could have fallen apart. Instead it turned into something really spectacular." Guy Mendilow, a talented multi-instrumentalist, originally joined the project as a session musician to play percussion and backup guitar, but his musical contributions quickly became an integral part of the musical process. The music on 6206 Ellen Ave. is driving and rhythmic, ornamented with two- and three-part vocal harmonies, and rough-edged without being sloppy. Ritter describes it as "out of control, like a runaway train." The feeling of wildness is partly due to the speed with which the whole project came together. Much of the original material on the album was written less than a week before the recording session, and the musicians rehearsed together only three times before hitting the studio for a two-day, 18-hour recording marathon. The CD also owes its roughness to the low-fi recording techniques of Big Toe Studio. The studio is located in the dark attic of a 19th-century mansion in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Its space is outfitted with condenser microphones, a few simple effect processors, and traditional analog recording equipment. Set-ups like these are a little quaint in this age of digital recording, computer engineering, and DAT tapes, but fit perfectly with the concepts motivating the album. "The whole vision we had for the recording centered around capturing the real experience of people making music--not about production," says Matros. Accordingly, Big Toe's Mike McDonald recorded the songs live, with all three musicians playing and singing at once, instead of layering instrumental and vocal tracks on top of each other, as recording artists frequently do. "I think it says a lot that most of the tracks happened in one take," says Matros. "The songs were true enough for us that things just came. It was almost eerie." Ritter describes the CD as "an album of extremes, with some sunny songs and some bloodcurdling ones." He says that the songs are strongly influenced by American folk traditions. "It's old-school folk," he says and mentions that he drew on specific folk forms like murder ballads and sea shanties when writing new songs for the CD. "We preserved a lot of the live feel," Mendilow says of the recording. "So much of it came out of the moment. We set down structures for songs, but most of the specific riffs, guitar solos, and harmonies just happened while we were recording." Baymiller says he wants to continue funding and producing recordings of student musicians. "Conservatory students record all the time. It's their bread and butter. But there's so much musical talent in the college as well. This is only a tiny slice of what's out there. "Sometimes in recording, something would happen that would make the hair stand up on my neck. On a couple occasions it brought tears to my eyes to hear how it was coming together. I don't want to overuse the word magical, but it had that feel to it." A CD-release party is scheduled for tonight at 10 in the 'Sco. Voices from the Attic will perform, and CDs will be for sale.
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