Ross McHenry

In early January 2015 I found out two of my favorite musicians, and friends, were in Adelaide at the same time as each other. Matthew Sheens, who lives in NYC, was in town to visit family and friends and Myele Manzanza, who lives in Wellington, NZ was in town to play WOMADelaide with his group. Matt and and I studied together at the Elder Conservatorium but hadn't played together for several years. Myele and I had been playing together pretty consistently since we recorded my 2013 album Distant Oceans. I knew this would be a great group if we could get it together so we scheduled in some recording time around Myele's performance at WOMAD and some other rehearsals Matt had on.

We didn't have much time but the music came together very quickly. We recorded 5 tunes over 1.5 days and the music sounded great! But as we all know, 5 tunes is not enough for an album so the files have been sitting on my computer waiting for an opportunity to get together and record again to finish the album.

That opportunity came when we were booked to perform at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival this year.

Immediately after the Melbourne Jazz Festival performances we will head into Ginger Studios in Melbourne for two days to complete the album. ,http://www.ginger-studios.com/

We'll be in the studio for 2 days and during that time we'll record another 5 tunes making the finished album 10 tunes.

Once we've finished the album I'll mix it at Mixmasters studios in Adelaide.

Once it's completed it'll be released on First Word records http://www.firstwordrecords.com/ but you'll get your copy first, before everyone else has a chance to hear it.

This project really means a lot to me. I can't wait to share the music with you all. You can preview the one of the tracks we recorded here last year here, it's called Inside your, my, our head. I hope you like it.


Thanks so much for considering contributing, it means the world to me.

Ross McHenry
March 2016

The funds you contribute will be used in the following ways.

$1920 - Studio fees Ginger Studios Melbourne (http://www.ginger-studios.com/)
$125 - Piano tuning fee
$750 - Tom Barnes engineering fee (www.tombarnesrecording.com/)
TOTAL: $2795

But I'm only asking you to cover part of the costs of this recording project, I'll be covering

Artist Fees - $2000
Artist flights and intl. airfare contribution $1000
Accommodation and living costs in Melbourne $1750
Mixing Costs - $2000
Total: $6750

And there are more costs too but First Word record, based in the UK will be covering those. They'll cover the production of physical units, artwork, mastering and distribution.

Because Matt and Myele don't live in Australia we'll only have limited rehearsal time before heading into the studio but luckily we'll have three major performance opportunities (2 at Melbourne Jazz and 1 in Adelaide) before we record so we should be more than across the material by the time we hit the studio.

We'll need to make sure we work productively to get all the new material in across the 2 days or recording. Luckily Matt and Myele are world class musicians so I'm confident we'll be able to make it happen in that timeframe.