(Pop, Folk, Singer-Songwriter) Riley Etheridge Jr. - Secrets, Hope & Waiting - 2016, MP3, 320 kbps

There are three sides to every story, as the saying goes, but what that phrase can also refer to is how well a skilled songwriter conveys a story from multiple points of view. In essence, that’s the blueprint Riley Etheridge Jr. mapped out for SECRETS, HOPE & WAITING, an eight-song travelogue that gives good geometry while taking its listeners on an intimate, acoustic-oriented character journey that spans the course of three decades. SECRETS was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Esplanade Studios, located in a refurbished 1910 church in New Orleans owned by the album’s engineer, Misha Kachkachishvili. The album’s dimensionality directly stems from the highly personal Esplanade studio setting, reflected in the musicians’ collective interpretations of the SECRETS song cycle. The multi-tiered viewpoints on display throughout are also mirrored in the album’s artwork, thanks to Derek Weisberg’s visceral, abstract sculptures as photographed by Shaun Roberts. “It was an intimate process of two different people’s perspectives of the underlying sculpture that started it,” explains Etheridge. “Now imagine going to see them at an art installation in a museum where you’d put on headphones and have a narrator discuss the images. But in this case, you’d have a high-definition listening experience with one specific song synced to that particular piece of art.” Ultimately, Etheridge prefers listeners will respect the arc by giving it repeat listens in sequence. “There’s definitely some cross-referencing in the songs, so I hope people will listen from start to finish,” he notes. “I’d like them to hear the narrative, because even things like the transition from ‘Hope & Waiting’ to ‘Hush’ was something I was very conscious about. My wish for that outro was that it sounded hopeful.” Hope is but one of the underlying messages to be discovered on Secrets — or, to borrow a line from “Everything You Wanted”: “I hope you find a better version of truth.” With SECRETS, HOPE & WAITING, Etheridge delivers a multi-angled view of the truth that’s deeper than any recorded treatise you may have heard in quite some time.