This was produced as part of the RPM Challenge, an annual invitation to musicians worldwide to produce an entire album from scratch in February. Previous RPM Challenges led to 2009’s Another Roadside Attraction, these songs from 2008, and these from 2007.

Download the entire album (Right-click or control-click to save to your computer)

01. It Was Over Before We Began

02. Year Of Dreams

03. Mind Control

04. Pig

05. Come Tomorrow

06. It’s A Weakness

07. Captain Kid

08. Bone Fragments

09. Scene

After four very short weeks, I’ve finished my CD for this year’s RPM Challenge (to write and record an entire album in one month). It’s called “Another Roadside Attraction.”

You can download the entire album, or listen to individual tracks below.

I apologize in advance for some of the horribly painful singing. And given more time, I’d do a lot of things differently with the production. But there are some moments where it almost sounds like I know what I’m doing. All in all, I’m just glad I made the completely artificial and meaningless deadline to get it all done in a month:

1. Intro

2. Stay

3. I’ve Got Bad News

4. Rabbit

5. Happy Birthday To Me

6. Dirt

7. The Holidays

8. A Strange And Beautiful World

9. Another Roadside Attraction

10. The End

Far, far from perfect, of course. But I cranked them out very quickly:

“The End” – My dog was lying next to me when I recorded the vocals on this one and you can hear her sighing after the first verse. I think she was really, really bored with it:

“A Strange And Beautiful World” – Even if I had the best singer in the world doing this one, I’d still process the hell out of the voice. I like noise.

I’ve done a third vocal piece for this year’s RPM, but I’m not really happy with it, yet. In the meantime, here are a couple more instrumental interludes I did. The audio at the beginning of “Interlude No. 3″ is from my 5th birthday.

Interlude No. 3

Interlude No. 4

RPM challenge track four: As always, I’d do some things differently if I had a little more time. But this one is close to being right.

Every few months, I get together with All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, NPR Music producer Stephen Thompson, and former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein, to talk music. On our latest roundtable we marked Valentine’s Day by sharing our favorite, lesser-known love songs.

I was able to come up with five new songs in the first week of the RPM Challenge: two vocal pieces and three short instrumentals.

This is the second vocal piece. It’s called “Dirt.” I’m a little flat on some of the vocals, and I’d do some things differently on the production side if I had more time. But this will have to do for now.

One of my ideas for this year’s RPM Challenge is to drop little instrumental interludes into the mix. This is my first one: “Interlude No. 1 (I’ve Got Bad News)”

Two tracks down. Eight to go. My next one will probably be another vocal piece.

This year’s RPM Challenge — write and record an entire album in one month — is under way. That’s roughly a song every three days. My first one for the challenge is called “Rabbit.” The vocals on the second half of the song aren’t very good, but I have to move on for now.