Mike Keneally "Wine And Pickles"

being a collection of unreleased things, rarities and allsorts from the last several years or so

[Four Stars] "Keneally's guitar work is of the highest order, and his shrewd production values hold true in the most informal settings. From structured rock tunes to solo piano improvisations and orchestral interludes, he consistently leads the way with studied and earnest musicianship. Keneally's standout guitar, vocal and production skills all come together on beautifully arranged tracks like 'Feelin' Strangely.' His postmodern approach allows for a bold assimilation of influences, as evidenced by the dynamic closing track, 'The Endings Of Things.' Keneally is sustaining the Zappa legacy as well as anyone in music today. Frank would be proud."

Mike describes Wine And Pickles as "the album I didn’t know I was making over the last ten years." Lovingly assembled from a wide array of archived sources, W&P serves as a surprisingly cohesive alternative history of Keneally music. Notable among the 21 gems are the legendary original version of "Backwards Deb;" "4S," a piece written for Holland's acclaimed Metropole Orchestra; "Inhale," a gorgeously melodic collaboration with Lyle Workman; and "The Endings Of Things," a stark, confessional performance from 2000's Dancing sessions. The CD contains an eight-page booklet with Mike's original artwork, pithy personal notes about each song, and lyrics.

Mike Keneally with Lyle Workman
"Inhale"
Click here for your free download from Wine And Pickles

Here's a wonderful complete song that you can download for free to get an idea of what Wine And Pickles sounds like (although there's an embarrassment of variety on the album). It's track 9 (a high-quality 256k VBR mp3 and a 12.3 MB zip file download) directly from the master, and we hope you'll want to hear more.

Mike describes the genesis of the track: "Lyle [Workman] composed, performed and produced the instrumental backing track by himself, then asked me to write a vocal part for it. His track was so fantastic, I could hear the vocal parts screaming at me just listening to it and I had the lyrics and melody written inside of a couple of hours. It was recorded in 1998, and released in 2000 on Lyle’s brilliant second album. I’ve gently begged Lyle to record an album’s worth of killer instrumental tracks that I can stick vocals on, but he’s been busy providing the soundtrack to the Judd Apatow cinematic empire-- and good on him – Lyle is entirely a genius and a sweet man and deserves all great things."