An update from The Map Room.

Well it's after midnight now and I'm regretting that cup of coffee I drank around eight o'clock. Sleep is a valuable commodity in a house with a three month old but tonight I am wired and can't sleep. I'm too excited and too caffeinated.

Recovery officially releases next Tuesday and Kierstin and I have been busying ourselves preparing for the big day. After launching the pre-order site we dove straight into planning and building out my new website with the Portland Studios guys. We're thrilled with how it's all coming along and everything is on schedule to go live next week.

sidenote: this blog will be moved to its new home within my new website. we'll put up a link...

In addition to the website, I've been booking concerts and re-thinking how my live show will be. In the past, it's either been me solo with my guitar or me and my guitar with a piano player...both allowed for an organic and casual atmosphere for the songs to unfold and for a conversation to happen with the folks in the audience....but things are changing since this new material was completed.

For starters, the new songs are chock full of strings, horns and various orchestral percussion instruments which I obviously can't lug around very affordably or easily at this point. So I've decided to wipe the slate clean and dream up a cool way to present these new songs in concert.

And I can't tell you yet -- but it's going be very very cool and very different from what I've done before in concerts. I'll know more as the summer progresses and I'll share here.

The bulk of the release shows won't start until early fall/late summer b/c i want to plan them out and give them the time and attention I gave the album.

I want to thank all of you who have PRE-ORDERED the album. We're still getting orders everyday and the record hasn't even come out yet!

And the feedback from people is great too. It feels wonderful for to us to hear that folks are digging the tracks and most everyone has told us that they feel this is my best work to date.

And to believe in something the amount that we believe in this collection of songs -- to spend your own money (and not a label's) to see the completion of your creative vision come into fruition -- it's just really gratifying in a very healthy and redemptive way. Especially after all the garbage that went down with The Innocence Fires and just to let go of all that bitterness and cynicism and try to make something BEAUTIFUL and TRUTHFUL that moves you and hopefully moves other people.

Now that is something I could spend the rest of my life doing.