Andwhichstray

andwhichstray, Mint Mile's sixth record, was predominantly engineered by one of my dearest friends, Steve Albini, at a recording seminar in the south of France.We finished the basics, did a few rough mixes and said our farewells, leaving Steve and his right hand man Greg Norman to wrap up. I fucked off to Paris for a few days. Steve and I both flew back to Chicago from different locations on Sunday, May 5th. Two days later, Steve was dead from heart failure.I've revisited a lot of older work in recent months, preparing for a Silkworm reunion (which is only happening because we had occasion to reform for Steve's memorial). Our peculiar focus on passion and mortality was, turns out, prescient and on the money, despite our relative youth. Similarly, the focus on, well, passion and mortality here seems fitting, given to what has happened to various people I love and loved, over the last year or so. John Kappes, John Kezdy, Steve--all beloved and big influences on my life--gone in the course of months. Along with others.But this is how it works. If people make your world a better place, it will necessarily feel like a worse place when they are gone. Yet what remains is still so much better than it ever would havebeen without them.So much of andwhichstray feels like it could have been written after all this dying.The idea of boiling down life to its essentials. How little we differ from pets and barnyard animals. Appreciating yet lamenting the grind through bad times, grateful for any rise up out of them. True freedom vs priggish, piggish fundamentalism. And the way the road forward looks when you're my age as opposed to, say, my kid's age.The next to last song on the record (“Can’t Be The First One”) was written by Jason Molina for the surviving members of Silkworm, the day after Michael Dahlquist was killed in 2005. I didn't listen to it for fifteen years. When I finally did, I realized we probably had the right band for it. It couldn't be more perfect for this record, which couldn't be more reflective of the last couple years in my life and the lives of many of my loved ones.Anyway, news flash, we aren't here forever.Records, somehow, actually do last forever--part of what's magical about making them, and part of why it's worth continuing to do it.I still love doing this thing, I'm very fond of this record, and I hope you find a use for it.Tim MidyettSeptember 2025