Led by Daniel Burton—founding member and engineer of albums by Songs: Ohia, Papa M, Okkervil River, and Windsor For The Derby—the band has enlisted various friends to round out their studio and live performances since their formation in Bloomington, IN over 20 years ago.
Early Day Miners' surroundings have always been reflected in their sound. Their early compositions, while in Bloomington, IN, mirrored the slowly unfurling, seemingly inescapable expanse of the Midwest. After a long hiatus following 2011's Night People, Burton relocated to New Orleans and, working with longtime musical partner and multi-instrumentalist Martin Sprowles, they teamed up with Jeff Massey (drums) and Matt Sklar (bass) to round out the newest incarnation of the band. They have been very active recently; performing live and completing a new recording studio called, Botanica.
The Crescent City; its name is not only a reminder of its shape carved out by the river cradling it, but also a perfect allegory of a city forever in flux between the most contrasting aspects of the human condition, from light to dark.
Within those darker quarters of experience lies the gold that Early Day Miners have labored to unearth with cautious vulnerability over the course of their eight albums. The internalized rumination that has characterized the band up until now has been exchanged for an open embrace of loss and sorrow and, perhaps even more courageously— joy.
