It’s been six years since Freakwater released its last album, “End Time” (Thrill Jockey). During the down time, both singers in the group released solo records (Janet Bean’s “Dragging Wonder Lake” and Catherine Irwin’s “Cut Yourself A Switch”) and juggled outside responsibilities (Bean also plays drums and sings with Eleventh Dream Day).
Last winter, after several scheduled sessions came and went without getting together, Irwin temporarily moved to Chicago from Louisville in an effort the force the band’s hand. “I didn’t even realize it had been that long,” says Bean. “We weren’t avoiding each other or anything like that. It was just circumstance.”
The band started the sessions for “Thinking of You” (Thrill Jockey) with the idea of recording amidst a big, sloppy band, trying to find the same sound that Bob Dylan nailed on “Nashville Skyline.” To help with the process, the band recruited longtime friend Tim Rutili of Califone to produce the record — the first time in its seven albums that Freakwater worked with an outside producer.
“It wasn’t like a producer where he said things were going to be done this way,” says Irwin. “It was sort of him suggesting something and me saying, `No. I want it to sound more like a Conway Twitty record.’ It was hard to really relinquish control and I don’t think he wanted us to do that.”
In fact, it was actually Rutili who had to be convinced that expanding Freakwater’s folksy anthems was the right decision.
“When I first heard the demos I liked hearing them empty,” says Rutili. “So they were the ones pushing to make a record that was more fleshed out.”
The resulting album sounds unmistakably like Freakwater. Bean and Irwin’s voices–the former’s prairie coo and the latter’s backwoods rasp–still intertwine like Georgia kudzu around a knotted pine.
But the sound is fuller, enriched by Jim Becker’s string arrangements and Rutili’s ability to breathe fresh life into turn-of-the-century instruments.
“I’ve never played with anybody that talented,” says Irwin. “They would say things like, `This song could use a bass clarinet.’ It was amazing. They were just leaping around like little elves.”
During the sessions, the band also decided to re-examine a song that it first attempted six years ago while recording “End Time.” The track, “Cathy Ann,” is a heart-wrenching account of the sudden passing of one of Woodie Guthrie’s daughters. The song is one of several that Freakwater has written about the death of a child in all its years together.
“We only have a handful of songs about children dying, which might be more than most bands,” says Bean. “But there isn’t a more devastating subject matter to write a song about.”
Irwin agrees, adding that part of what originally drew her to the tale was morbid curiosity, being that she shared a name with the youngster. The resulting song — gorgeously simple in both its structure and delivery — ended up the emotional epicenter of the album (also fitting since it falls directly in the middle of the track listing).
“Cathy Ann,” as with a majority of “Thinking Of You,” was penned by Irwin because, as she says, “[Bean] is too happy right now.”
“That’s one of the luxuries of being in a band with Catherine,” says Bean, who has written as many as half the tracks on previous albums. “She’s such an amazing songwriter that she can fill an album by herself.”
The give-and-take of the pair’s relationship, which stretches back more than two decades, is part of the reason that Freakwater has continued to thrive.
“Janet and I have been singing together so long that it’s just natural,” says Irwin. “It’s almost like a weird, Mormon marriage or something.”
Freakwater, 11:30 p.m. Saturday at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St. $15; 773-549-0203.
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