Name: So Clear - Twelve Bridges by Bruce Farrell
Duration: 3 min 43 s
Description: So Clear by Twelve Bridges (Bruce Farrell, Jamie Gawecki, Josh Shaughnessy, Julia Hickling, and Mark Newport).

Written by Bruce Farrell and Doug Thomson. Produced by Bryan Akcasu.

North and 32

Sweet Maria

Written by Joseph Karam. Produced by Bryan Akcasu

Green

Written by Rayland Baxter. Produced by Bryan Akcasu

The MTN Song

Written by Bruce Farrell. Produced by Bryan Akcasu

Don't Run Away

“Good Life” is about me and my wife’s mission to get out of Detroit and get back to Los Angeles. We had started to feel really stuck there, really defeated and depressed. But we rallied together, hatched a big plan, and as a team we made a big change in our lives for the better. We each tackled the tasks in our areas of expertise, just like we always do, and together we made it happen. That kind of partnership is almost the best thing ever, when two people fit together and look out for each other on so many levels. It sounds old-fashioned to talk about a “good wife”, but to me she’s more than just my lover and my friend. I wanted to write about that, a love song from an oddly practical point of view. I thought the song was too cheesy at first, but then I said, “Fuck it, I really feel strongly about this”. 

Two Cheers returned to L.A. and Bryan started writing and recording a lot of songs. These 8 are the first to be finished. The songs represent a process of reliving the past, synthesizing it, and investing life with new meaning for the rest of the journey... It reflects Bryan's decision to give up on a music career, heal his soul, start a family, devote himself to domestic life. These songs started out as rock songs akin to Two Cheers’ past material, morphed into electronica experimentation, and while you can still hear remnants of them strewn about through the tracks, it was determined these special songs were better stripped down and played on acoustic guitar, with the other elements taking a backseat to the vocal performances. John O’Reilly Jr made a triumphant return on drums and percussion, and Alison Crawford of the indie band Ghost Hotel lended some background vocals to “Four Months” and “Future Constellations”. Justin Newton lent his tremendous talents to mixing and mastering these songs, and Los Angeles artist Timothy Dutch created over a dozen new pieces for the cover art for the record and singles.

Good Life

“Future Constellations” is about a night under the stars in Michigan's wild and chilly upper peninsula, longing for something or someone whose never coming back: I wrote this song because back in Detroit, I had a terrible sense of loss: I missed my friends who spread out across the country, I missed my life in California, I missed my mom and grandma who had both just passed, and I had the feeling of losing my innocence too, especially seeing my once happy family in so much pain and having so many hopes and plans shattered. So, while I can’t pinpoint the subject of the song; I just had a longing for a lost world, lost people, lost hope, and I wanted to believe I could relive it all and see everyone again. During those days, before we left Michigan, I used to visit my aunt’s cabin on Lake Superior and just kick around on my own. One night on the lake, I started thinking about the constellations changing shape over millions and billions of years, and how the arrangements of stars we know now are just a snapshot of the universe at this time. They’ll scatter over time, but maybe if enough time passes, stars will eventually end up making the same shapes, and the constellations we know could reform. It seemed like the right metaphor. 



Two Cheers returned to L.A. and Bryan started writing and recording a lot of songs. These 8 are the first to be finished. The songs represent a process of reliving the past, synthesizing it, and investing life with new meaning for the rest of the journey... It reflects Bryan's decision to give up on a music career, heal his soul, start a family, devote himself to domestic life. These songs started out as rock songs akin to Two Cheers’ past material, morphed into electronica experimentation, and while you can still hear remnants of them strewn about through the tracks, it was determined these special songs were better stripped down and played on acoustic guitar, with the other elements taking a backseat to the vocal performances. John O’Reilly Jr made a triumphant return on drums and percussion, and Alison Crawford of the indie band Ghost Hotel lended some background vocals to “Four Months” and “Future Constellations”. Justin Newton lent his tremendous talents to mixing and mastering these songs, and Los Angeles artist Timothy Dutch created over a dozen new pieces for the cover art for the record and singles.

Future Constellations

“Four Months” came out of wanting to be able to heal those in my life that are hurting. When my grandma and mom died in the same year, my loved ones were really hurting, and of course I was too, and I kept wondering “How are we going to get over this huge loss and all these painful memories?!” I wanted to be the strong one, to be the healer, to be detached, and to always express that everything is going to be okay. Alas, I don’t think I really am a healer, I’m too introverted and that’s just not a gift I have! So the song is couched in a kind of mythical anime-like world in which I’m a witch doctor sort of healer that has special talents and mysterious techniques to build a defeated hero back up from devastation, and it’s as easy as that. It’s a fantasy. Technically, I’m a trained reiki practitioner, so some of the imagery comes from that. But for the record, I’m pretty sure reiki is bogus. 

Two Cheers returned to L.A. and Bryan started writing and recording a lot of songs. These 8 are the first to be finished. The songs represent a process of reliving the past, synthesizing it, and investing life with new meaning for the rest of the journey... It reflects Bryan's decision to give up on a music career, heal his soul, start a family, devote himself to domestic life. These songs started out as rock songs akin to Two Cheers’ past material, morphed into electronica experimentation, and while you can still hear remnants of them strewn about through the tracks, it was determined these special songs were better stripped down and played on acoustic guitar, with the other elements taking a backseat to the vocal performances. John O’Reilly Jr made a triumphant return on drums and percussion, and Alison Crawford of the indie band Ghost Hotel lended some background vocals to “Four Months” and “Future Constellations”. Justin Newton lent his tremendous talents to mixing and mastering these songs, and Los Angeles artist Timothy Dutch created over a dozen new pieces for the cover art for the record and singles.

Four Months

So Clear by Twelve Bridges (Bruce Farrell, Jamie Gawecki, Josh Shaughnessy, Julia Hickling, and Mark Newport).

Can you See?

So Clear - Twelve Bridges

Can You See? by Twelve Bridges (Bruce Farrell, Jamie Gawecki, Josh Shaughnessy, Julia Hickling, and Mark Newport)

Can You See?

Can You See? - Twelve Bridges

Revisited my first Studio One recording, played around with Melodyne to clean up my bad vocals and added some fake percussion to fill things in a bit better. 

This was originally recorded for Twitch's Streamer Song Swap, here's a link to the original version, which can get you to the rest of the album (and the four total SSS albums, which I'm also part of Vol. 4!): https://streamersongswap.bandcamp.com/track/rockinjosh-covering-ashorphan-shooting-stars

So Clear - Twelve Bridges

Bruce Farrell

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