Drawing together a network of musicians around europe and north america to explore the tradition of ballads in various forms, their first album, “Where Have You Been”, mixes traditional songs, whose authorship is lost in the mists of times, with works by contemporary songwriters.

Claude Cahn says of the project, which has been gestating for several decades, “It has been a great trip in the making. The people involved take their music – and their stories – very seriously. Mainly this record has been about the joy of making music alone or with other people. These recordings also pay homage: included are songwriters to whom we owe debts and not small ones — songwriters who raised us, emotionally, politically and poetically, as well as the dark resonant words and sounds of the distant past, beyond memory.”

“This is a record of ballads. It was made with some friends in various parts of Europe, in a cave in the attic of the building where I live, and in various other warrens and grottos around the continent. Some tracks were also recorded in Hamden, USA, in the Great State of Connecticut.”

“This project has been taking shape in my mind for quite some time. For example, when I was teaching English as a second language to 8th graders in 1991, I used to use “Long Black Veil” for teaching purposes and some of the girls would cry as we went into the lyrical content. So this is an idea more than 3 decades gestating, and it is fitting that “Long Black Veil” comes first on this record.“