Nearly 25 years ago I recorded an album on a home computer for the first time. I had previously recorded a couple albums in studios and one EP on an analog 4-track cassette recorder, but multi-track recording on a computer was a whole new world for independent musicians at the time.

I jumped on this new bandwagon with limited knowledge and equipment. I had a cheap analog mixer that was connected to my computer’s soundcard input. The mixer produced a lot of noise, but I didn’t really know it at the time because I was mixing through an old boombox for monitors. You have to start somewhere!

I owned one microphone, a Sure SM57, an affordable instrument mic but not a studio mic in the least. I used it for vocals and everything that needed a microphone. I borrowed a  Fender Strat and Marshall amp for the tracks with electric guitar. My good friend John Vaeth did a beautiful job on the bass guitar as well as the mandolin tracks.

Honestly, this is one of my favorite recordings except for the noise and some of the novice mixing mistakes. Almost 25 years later I decided to see if I could find backups of the project in my storage shed. I was so excited to find a box with old CD-RWs labeled with the names of these songs.

I loaded all of these one by one into Studio One (the digital audio workstation I presently use) and began to clean up the noisy tracks and remix and remaster the songs.

One thing that none of us had 25 years ago was today’s music streaming platforms. So, I’m excited to re-release this project with a fresh mix for your listening enjoyment. I’ve included a few convenient links below or you can search Phillip Telfer on your favorite streaming service and find Through Our Windows (25th Anniversary Edition).