With the new album "Wheel", just fresh out of the oven, NYC songwriter Laura Stevenson decided to up the production value, steering away from the lo-fi approach of her previous two albums. She enlisted producer Kevin McMahon, someone whose work she respected immensely and who would, as she put it, “be the perfect set of ears for these songs.” She also brought in Rob Moose on violin and Kelly Pratt to play brass, adding their own layers of depth to the band’s full arrangements. Despite the move to sleeker production, the album retains its organic nature, relying primarily on the resonance of acoustic instruments and the electricity of simply over-driven amplifiers, with its most synthetic moment coming from a Roland organ, an unconscious decision explained as Laura Stevenson and the Cans’ way of “being real, relying on each other’s energy to keep time and just playing the songs like human beings, flaws and all.” ... Click on the title for more