Northern Californian singer-songwriter, Eric Anders, and southern Californian guitarist-composer, Mark O’Bitz, released their twelve-song concept album, American Bardo, on July 31, 2020.
American Bardo was recorded, produced, and mixed by Mike Butler of San Diego. All the songs were written by Eric and Mark and inspired by George Saunders’ Mann-Booker-Prize-winning novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. All the songs on American Bardo are what Eric calls “readings” related to one or more of the characters in the novel.
Eric and Mark took sixteen songs into the studio. The four songs on their forthcoming EP, This Mortal Farce, were not directly related to one of the characters in Saunders’ novel so they thought a separate EP would be a better way to release these four songs. This Mortal Farce will be Eric’s eleventh release (just counting EPs and LPs) and the duo’s fourth release.
Eric got into writing and recording songs in the early 2000s when he met Mark at one of Mark’s shows and the two decided to collaborate on music. Eric then tried to make up for lost time by releasing three critically-acclaimed solo releases in four years: Not At One (2003), Songs for Wayward Days (2004), More Regrets (2005), and Tethered to the Ground (2006).
In 2007, the duo’s song “So Wrong” from Tethered to the Ground was used in the Michael Schroeder film, Man in the Chair, starring Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer. The song “Big World Abide” from Tethered to the Ground was used in TV shows: the Dutch soap opera Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden, and the Courtney Cox TV show, Dirt.
Eric wrote the majority of the songs on these early releases with Mark and this would hold true for his 2011 solo release, Remains In Me, his “best of Eric Anders” retrospective Big World Abide in 2016, and his anti-Trump album Eleven Nine in 2017.
As a duo, Eric and Mark would release Of All These Things in 2018 (their debut release as a duo), Ghosts To Ancestors in 2019, and American Bardo in 2020.
Mark and Eric are currently “stuck inside” like everyone else so they decided to do a pseudo-concept album: Sirens Go By: Music in the Time of Coronavirus. Five of the songs they went into the studio with will be on another EP, Stuck Inside: Music in the Time of Coronavirus.
They will work remotely with all the musicians and the producer, Mike Butler. They hope to release the album and EP early in 2021. They can be so sure about the release date because they don’t have much else to schedule or work on, except homeschooling kids, hoarding TP, keeping at-risk family members safe, etc. Eric and Mark wish everyone good luck and safe non-travels during these difficult times.
