December: Our Escape Plan Was Simple

from A Year In Song by The Nautical Miles

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About the song…

It is hard to believe, but with Our Escape Plan Was Simple, A Year in Song is complete. Time flies. This year, in particular, seems to have disappeared with a frightening and unforgiving speed.

This project, with an update approximately every four weeks, served to punctuate the passage of time, leaving distinct and regular markers along an otherwise elastic period. As producers of this work, it is pretty wild to look back and reimagine who we were when we were working on these songs. I hope that you can experience something similar as listeners.

Speaking of time flying, it was in 2002, seven years ago, that I spent a month travelling up to the Yukon and back again with my girlfriend at the time. It was a powerful trip. The landscape was imposing, the distances were vast, and, on a personal level, the two of us were faced with my impending departure to Toronto, leaving the future of our relationship in question. So yeah… powerful stuff.

This is one of the first songs I wrote for The Nautical Miles, and one that I am, to this day, quite proud of. I feel that I was able to capture the majesty, intensity, joy, and agony of that trip. Be that as it may, the song, originally clocking in at over 10 mins, was a challenge for us to pull off in any live or recorded scenario and soon became a running joke for the band. Whenever we couldn’t decide what to play during a set someone would suggest Escape Plan, eliciting chuckles from the rest of us. When we would be rallying ourselves during the break at a disastrous gig, dreading the return to the stage, someone would pipe in with, “Let’s just play Escape Plan. That’ll take up the entire next set.” Again chuckles.

And so it is with great pleasure and more than a little bit of self-congratulation that we present to you a fully realized version of Our Escape Plan Was Simple, arranged by Lucas and Tim and featuring performances by Cris Derksen (cello), Kathleen Nisbet (violin) and Stephanie Miletic (viola). Pared it down to a neat 8 minutes, seven years in the making, the much maligned Our Escape Plan Was Simple finally has its day.

What a way to end an amazing year. Enjoy.

About the artwork…

Ehren Salazar is a gifted visual artist whose drawings I find to be breathtakingly beautiful. He also works selflessly to create affordable and accessible cultural spaces in a city bereft of cultural spaces. Whether he is booking a gallery, curating an animation festival, or working the bar at an over-capacity noise show, he is quitely, assuredly, and gracefully building a community around Little Mountain Studios that this city’s young artists have come to depend on. Thanks Ehren!

I was taken aback by the piece that Ehren created for this song. Quite frankly, I was expecting a landscape painting; however, once the initial shock had subsided I was shocked again in realizing that, in fact, Ghost and a Lady is the perfect companion for Our Escape Plan Was Simple, re-framing the song for me, and reminding me what it is really all about. I think I had forgotten.

You can see more of Ehren’s work at monsterdinosaur.blogspot.com

credits

from A Year In Song, track released December 15, 2009
Ehren Salazar: artwork
Corbin Murdoch: guitar, vocals
Tim Tweedale: steel guitar, trumpet, arrangements
Lucas Schuller: drums, glockenspiel, arrangements
Simon Rotheisler: bass
Kathleen Nisbet: violin
Stephanie Miletic: viola
Cris Derksen: cello
Jesse Gander: production

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The Nautical Miles Vancouver

The Nautical Miles are an adventurous roots music band from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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