For my solo album Intentionally Blank, released in early 2013, I took my inspiration from the structure and production of classic rock songs. A weekend trip to Nashville and a week in Chicago inspired several songs that made their way onto the album. My working title for the album was Sleeping in the Backyard with Unicorns - a title that lingered in the back of my mind for months and eventually emerged as a song on the album. But when all the recordings were completed, that title didn't fit the sound and feeling of the album as a whole. I examined all the songs for clues that might lead to a title for the album, but nothing quite fit. The title I eventually chose, Intentionally Blank may not exactly relate to the baroque pop, layered rhythm guitars and double-guitar leads throughout the record, but it had the right quality that felt appropriate. Plus, once I had the title, the album cover practically designed itself. Dreams and surrealist/existential thoughts often infuse my songs and pervade my albums, a trend that continues on Intentionally Blank. Both The Ice Age and Michigan Avenue came to me directly from dreams, while Hypnotized, Stolen from a Dreamer and Sleeping in the Backyard with Unicorns are thematically dream-oriented songs. Another intentional decision in the writing of this album was to keep all the songs up-tempo. When left to my own devices, as anyone knows who has followed my work any number of the years, I have a tendency to write songs in the slow-to-mid-tempo range, and - blame those early Syd Barrett solo albums - I've always been attracted to the strange-and-slow-paced psychedelic pop song. When choosing songs for this album, I shelved some perfectly good songs that were simply too slow, and in their place I wrote new, upbeat songs. It was also important to include plenty of memorable riffs - witness Better to See clocking in at 211 beats per minute, and loaded with catchy little riffs, and Battles which rocks at a solidv138 BPM to close out the album with epic Americana flair. -Andrew Lawrence Jackson, San Francisco, California Intentionally Blank was written, arranged, and produced by Andrew Lawrence Jackson at his home studio in San Carlos and Rick Cuevas Studio in Palo Alto, California. Mixed by Andrew L. Jackson and Rick Cuevas.
