[Editor’s Note] Bombadil is a Americana and folk-pop band that formed in 2005. The band’s current lineup currently features Daniel Michalak, James Phillips, and Daniel Michalak, and Madison Rivis. Phillips currently lives in Durham, North Carolina, while Michalak lives in Vourey, France. On Friday, September 12, the group will release their ninth album entitled How The Moon Got Back Home.
According to the band’s bio, the album is collection of 13 songs “about friendship and the moon that we wrote over the last year, played on acoustic instruments, and recorded to tape with the help of friends.”
“We began with a fable written by Madison Rivis (Winston-Salem, NC),” the bio further explains. “Madison is a dancer and choreographer we’ve been collaborating with over the last two years. The fable is about a group of friends trying to get the moon back into the sky after she’s fallen to earth.”
While living in London for a summer, Phillips took 12 moments from the fable and wrote lyrics to them with the help of some research. Michalak then modified them and composed “exuberant melodicisms of the complicated nature of living in the world” and reflecting “on the moon’s astonishing presence in our sky.”
The band sought to limit “our sonic pallet to vocals, acoustic guitar, bass, piano, percussion, clarinet, recorder, panpipes, and a small DIY synthesizer. We wanted to acoustically represent dance and be inspired by movement more generally. How do you record dancing? We’re still not sure, but look out for the sound of tap dancing.”
In April, the band recorded the album at Phillips’ studio with the help of producer David Wax (David Wax Museum), who also played string instruments. Reed Benjamin engineered the session.
Below, Michalak pens an essay describing what it’s been like living in France since moving there in 2020.
Since I moved to France 5 years ago, I made the decision to be “French.” For me, that means every day I eat a chocolate croissant.
Of course, no French person does this. Mostly, they eat “tartines” or bread with butter and jam. There is also always a glass of orange juice. Working stiffs or cool people just have an espresso. Children just eat candy masquerading as cereal covered in nutella.
I often wear an old-fashioned straw hat and walk around saying bonjour to strangers. I drink wine in the middle of the day and eat pieces of cheese that are way too big. I read a fancy French newspaper about world politics. It is 28 pages long. It comes once a month. It takes me the whole month to read, because it is hard and sometimes boring. I read a page a day, I skip the last two pages because they’re just book reviews of more hard things to read in French.
A lot of French people have been to the U.S. Often it’s New York, Florida, or California. I have also met many people who have been to Minnesota for some reason. I tell them it’s not a common place to go and that most Americans don’t even go to Minnesota. They usually don’t know where North Carolina is, so I say in between DC and Atlanta.
People are happy here when I tell them I am a musician. They think it is cool and that I secretly must be famous and know famous people like Jay-Z. My retired neighbor follows Bombadil on TikTok. For some reason, every time he sees me he likes to show me my own videos that I posted on TikTok. I have since stopped posting on TikTok.
Bombadil is putting out a new album on September 12th called How The Moon Got Back Home. My bandmate, James, came to visit me last September in France to help finish writing the songs. The first day he got here, my basement flooded with poop. We ended up spending most of the week buying cleaning supplies and digging a big hole in the yard looking for the broken pipe. We also took a hike in the mountains and saw a chamois cross the path.
It has been a year and the broken poop pipe is still not fixed. The album is done, however. Vive La France!
Daniel Michalak
Contributor
Daniel Michalak is a founding member of the long running folk-pop band Bombadil. Originally based in Durham, NC, Daniel moved to Vourey, France in 2019 to be closer to his wife's family. He enjoys gardening, walks, and newspapers. Bombadil have released 9 albums, 3 EPs and one Beatles cover.
