Flowers [LP]

Max Bien Kahn - Flowers [LP]

13 years ago, Max Bien Kahn moved to New Orleans. He was already a songwriter then, but in Louisiana he became a performer busking up and down Royal Street with jazz and country bands, playing upright bass and guitar until it became a full-time gig. Right now, most of his time is spent playing tenor banjo in the traditional jazz band Tuba Skinny. After some critically acclaimed local releases, Kahn reached out to his friend, Video Age's Ross Farbe, about working on some new material together._x000B__x000B_Kahn and his quartet worked for an entire year, lasting from extreme lockdown to a post-vaccine world. "The first few sessions we had," Kahn says, "we had the windows open, doors cracked, we were wearing masks, everyone was really paranoid." But it wasn't all nerves. "To have that time was so rare. That'll never happen again. We were able to sit on it and not worry about a deadline or anything like that."_x000B__x000B_Kahn's never made an album like Flowers before. When he's recording in New Orleans, the projects are usually live material or feature a lot of guest performers. It's how you get folks like Esther Rose, Matt Bell, Ray Micarelli, Steph Green, Charlie Halloran, and Shaye Cohn. This time, though, it was just Kahn, Farbe, Pearson, and Snyder. "It's a much more intimate process," Kahn says. And the songs get personal without losing Kahn's trademark brightness. He'll always try to be funny about the things that are following him around, be it death, marriage, and whatever triumphs and tragedies fall someplace in-between.