Freewood is the solo project of Los Angeles musician Micah Lashbrook. Micah, a guitarist since he was 15, first played in the band The Agro Puppet Show and is currently working on the sophomore album for his group The Laughing Man, to be released before the end
of the world (a.k.a. 2012).

Having grown tired of tracking parts separately – drums, bass, guitar, keys, whatever else was lying around the studio – Micah tracked all of Talanzias singing and playing at the same time to capture each songs’ raw emotion, stating how crucial it was to record “the interplay between voice and instrument.” No more than 10 takes of each song were laid down, then he'd pick the take that conveyed “the most sincere
interpretation of the lyric and melody” instead of the one with the best note-for-note delivery. First track, “Common Goals,” ended up being
the first take all the way through.

Freewood's influences vary from Bob Dylan's solo covers album World Gone Wrong and Portugal. The Man's falsetto voice styling to Tim Fite’s hybrid folk-hop, all the way to Olu Dara's southern swagger.
Sunshine tinged and bittersweet, Talanzias’ songs are a refreshing blend of lo-fi acoustic and subtle hi-fi instrumentation.

As for themes, it's not uncommon for artists to have tragedy inspire their work. When Micah’s mother passed away a few years ago he promised her an album, and The Laughing Man’s A Palace for Alice is
what came out. But he had several songs lingering in that same mindset, and when his girlfriend’s father passed away unexpectedly last year, Freewood was his opportunity to revisit those old songs with newfound fervor and purpose. As Micah puts it, he “worked through some pretty depressing material to hopefully find a light at the end of the tunnel with this batch of songs.”

However, Talanzias isn't an exercise in morbidity by any stretch. There are also stories about love triangles gone awry with “Layne Staley,” Big Brother paranoia in “Satellites,” and creepy playground crushes with
“I'm Waiting for You.” There's even a hokey country tune called “Time,” complete with rattlers and mouth-clicks to emulate horse hooves because Micah couldn't find any coconuts. Let the album play out and
you'll find a hidden track of infectiously rambunctious gibberish called “This Is How I Feel Today.” In essence, Talanzias is soul music that runs the entire gamut of human emotion.

Talanzias was engineered, mixed and mastered by Micah at Kotori Studios in Culver City, CA. Two tracks, "Thought I Was a Gun" and "I'm Waiting for You," were recorded in his emptied out living room where
the 1950s hardwood floors provided a “cool organic reverb” for those bare bones tunes.

The goal for Freewood is to have it heard and enjoyed by as many people as possible, which led to the idea to give away Talanzias for free on freewoodmusic.com. Micah explains, "commerce can destroy the sentiment sometimes, after all, how could someone sell an album
called Freewood?"