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Hi Friends. Hope you’re all well and warm. At long last, Stereophile is done!!! Please have a listen to the audio below. Also on this page are the credits and story that unfolded while making the record and book. Buy links are below the player. Hope ya dig…

Purchase your copy via PayPal or eTransfer me at kdub@kelvinwetherell.com
It’s $20 for your digital download of the record and physical copy of the book
Canadian residents buying in person (at shows, etc.) please add $2.60 for tax. Total $22.60.
Online purchases are $1.75 to ship anywhere in Canada. Total w/tax and shipping $24.60.
Global shipping fees to be determined according to distance and packaging requirements
Once you’ve placed your order, please email us, along with your address, at kdub@kelvinwetherell.com and we’ll send you your copy of the book. A download link to the record will be sent to your email address.

If you live in Toronto, I might be able to hand deliver the book and give you a hug. It depends on where you live, or if you like hugs.

Thanks so much for your support!

Credits
Kelvin Wetherell – Vox, Acoustic Guitar, Les Paul, Bass, Piano, Organ, Drums, Percussion, String/Vocal Arrangements
Howard Ayee – Bass on Grip The Raven and Dark Horse
Kaleb Hikele – Piano on Kinder Things

Produced, Recorded and Mixed by Kelvin Wetherell
Acoustic Guitars recorded by Kaleb Hikele at The Townhouse
Mastered by Howard Ayee

All Songs Written, Composed and Arranged by Kelvin Wetherell Copyright 2025

The Stereophile Story
On an unseasonably cold and grey day at the end of April, 2022, I pulled round the last corner of an east end townhouse complex, checking each address and looking for the mailbox with the music stickers plastered all over it. After successful location, with acoustic guitar in hand, I knocked. Greeted by friend/studio owner (and fabulous singer/songwriter!) Kaleb Hikele, we navigated the barking of his dear doggo, Bear, and headed down to the basement to get to work. The idea was to record five of my songs with just my acoustic. I didn’t know at the time what the heck I was going to do with them. There was certainly no idea that they’d become part of an eight song, full length record and book. Over two days we succeeded in tracking five songs. I was down with most of what I played, then, in the true fashion of (usually unneeded) songster angst, I thought everything was shite. I needed a break from what I’d tracked.

Enter the studio upgrades. I’d just been turned on to the world of plug ins (digital instruments, recording hardware, etc.). I’d been recording at home for years. My beater of a laptop, eight years old at the time, therefore prehistoric in terms of technology, couldn’t handle the new oomph I was throwing at it. I’d recently reconnected with my old mate, Howard Ayee, who’d produced on of my records back in 2009. It was great to reconnect with him. He’s responsible for my new plug-in-fanboy-geek-out status. He was forever dangling the many new carrots that make modern recording truly awesome. I bought everything he sent me. I also bought a new laptop, which, after six months of agony trying to figure out why it wasn’t recording properly, made me so irate that I shelved the recording for months and spent the summer barefoot and busking at Jimmie Simpson Park here in Toronto. I returned the craptop and swapped it out for a new one. I got it set up and was off again…

I spent 2023 recording in bits, whenever energy or will permitted. Some of my peeps reading this are already aware of my chronic struggles. I’ve been living the effects of a botched hip surgery and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in early 2023. At the end of that summer, I tore the medial meniscus in my knee and could hardly walk. My personal stars were not aligned and it felt like the universe was giving me the boots over and over. Still, we persist. I kept going, working my day gig and being a present, single Dad and solo householder. I kept up with my live playing and preparation, always wanting to keep my pickin’ and singin’ chops in shape, or “match fit”, as Jimmy Page calls it. 2023 was a great year for gigs. I played a bunch of out of town stuff and made some great friends. I was not much concerned that the progress of the record was not swiftly moving. In November, I decided to start creating the book that would accompany the record.

The written part of Stereophile, affectionately known as Booky, is a collection of lyrics and images that my daughter, Ava, and I created. The first drafts were created in a free, Word-light type program. My old friend, Alexis Campbell, recommended moving the creation of the book over to InDesign. I did so. She also let me use her Adobe suite, without which I couldn’t have made the book. I then spent many days wanting to fire my laptop through the sliding glass doors that lead out to our back garden. Anyone who’s used Adobe in the past can attest to how frustrating their proprietary, weird-ass way of doing things can be. Still, we persist. No laptops were harmed in the making of the book or record. Bit by bit, I was making progress. Through days of pain sometimes so severe I couldn’t think straight, the record and book were happening!

Sleep, eat, parent, work, parent, record, rehearse, repeat. So it went for the next year. The sonic elements of the record were the easy part. I’ve made many records and written many songs. Writing and designing the book were new, as was working with the plugins. These were steep learning curves, happening while I was in full creative singer/songwriter/arranger/producer mode. I loved building the colours around the acoustic spines of the tracks. I worked extensively with strings and choral vocal arrangements, as well as digging in and creating unique sounds out of whatever was available to me, digitally and otherwise. The parts came fluidly. If an idea wasn’t cooking, it was scrapped. I didn’t wrestle with stuff not working. Usually, the parts sang themselves in my head. It was a matter of extracting them and finding the right sound, the one that fit with the track.

Also new to me was mixing a full length record. I’d released a few singles during the pandemic years and beyond. Mixing a full record is a different beast. Another learning curve. I mixed as I went. There was little to do when the tracking was done. I tweaked a few of the acoustic guitars and made some small changes. It was then time to master.

With Howard on board to master the record, we set to work finding the right chain of gear to put the final stitches into the Frankenstein. It was a looooooooooooooooooooong process. I’d always left mastering to others. I was fully involved this time. It meant going back to the songs and massaging the vocals deeper into the sonic landscape of the arrangements. I also had to tweak some of the levels on the instruments to sit better in the tracks. We wrapped the mastering and the end result is a beautiful sounding record. When I was able to take myself out of the recording and listen as just listener and not creator, I was touched. It felt like the singer was in the room with me. The sonic wormhole surrounding the vocals were what I had first envisioned. That coming to pass was a feather in my cap. While mastering, I was working concurrently on finishing the book and getting it printed.

The design of the book was going amazingly. I added a dedication, table of contents, afterword, all the things to make it feel like a proper book. The printing then became an epic situation, due to a ghost in the machine. The first run of books did not look like the proof I signed off on. Something happened in cyberspace that made one of the images look wacky. This required another few weeks of back and forth with printer and Alexis, figuring out what the issue was. It was mad. Finally, out of the murky mist, the final proof was good and off to print we went. I received the first run of books in the middle of February of 2025, which is the same month I’m writing this. With the book and record done, here I am, getting it set up for all of you to read and hear.

The creation of the book was important to me. As I mention in the afterword, I wanted you to have something to hold. Something tactile and real, to compliment and help heal the disconnect of all our modern digital trappings. As a kid I used to love pouring over an album’s liner notes, reading all the details about what went into making it; the names of the band members, the lyrics, the artwork, where it was recorded, and the little tidbits of random info that made you feel like you were on the inside of something.

So, here we are. A new record that I never thought I’d make. My first book, the first of many, I hope. Against the odds, with the help and support of dear family and friends, these creations happened. In hindsight I’m aware of the Herculean effort that went into completing this phase of my artistic life. There were days I wanted to die, not because of any garden variety artistic crisis, but because living with intense chronic pain, along with prolonged use of pharmaceutical painkillers, have a way of taking their toll on a body and being. It’s hard to stay ahead of the black dogs of depression when sitting still hurts. Still, we persist. I made it. It was no small feat. The record and book are beautiful. I hope the songs on the record hit you. Here’s to creativity and connection.


K. xo

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Father, why are all the children weeping?
They are merely crying son
Oh, are they merely crying, father?
Yes, true weeping is yet to come

                         – Nick Cave, The Weeping Song

I bunked off work early, the strains of the week pulling at my spirit, headlong into Friday’s reprieve; the wages of love, parenthood and finishing Stereophile jostling for the top spot on the neverending to do list. The plan: To kick back for a few, then head down the hall and finish mixing the last of the premasters for the record. The reality: With chronic pain at the redline, a few hours flat out in a haze of medically approved cannabis oil, searching the interwebs for musical redemption.

After a YouTube trip into Live At KEXP and NPR Tiny Desk Concert land, I came across Kingdom In The Sky: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Live At Hanging Rock. It’s a forty-two minute doc and live performance from their show there last year. I was curious, but reserved. The setting at Hanging Rock is beautiful and these two chaps are both amazing musicians, but I’ve been a bit put off Nick after reading about his late-found Christian zeal.

I’ve loved Nick Cave for many, many years. I was turned on to him when he was well into his career with the Bad Seeds. I feel blessed to have grown with him over the years. In the time I’ve been listening to his music I’ve watched us both evolve. He’s become a kinder, more compassionate human being, with a wonderful perspective on humanity.

Not too long ago, I saw a clip of Cave at his Q&A tour and someone asked him about religion. His answer had to do with all of us reaching for something. It was eloquently profound and applied to all. Shortly thereafter, I read an interview where he talked about his Christian acceptance. I happened to be listening to one of his records at the time and it hit differently. All the aspects that felt like questions about Christianity now felt like devout proclamations. I said earlier that I’ve been put off, but I think, more accurately, I’m struggling to find a place for it, for the obvious reason that many of us find aspects of Christianity and the church questionable, and I am one of those.

I’ve often looked to Christ for guidance myself, though without the dogmatic trappings and hypocrisy of the institution that bears His name. I’ve often wanted to find comfort in the church, or something like it, for a foundation in which to live my life when the storm feels so relentless. Who that seeks understanding wouldn’t want a harbour so safe as this?

It occurs to me that Nick’s Jesus thing might be the prime mover in his evolution and greater kindness as he ages. I know others to which this happens without religion, but I don’t know many of us who have gone through the great tragedies of losing a teenaged son and then losing a grown son only a few years later. Nick Cave lived these sorrows publicly, with rare grace and courage. The former tragedy spawned the record, Ghosteen, which is a work of unspeakable beauty. Cave and Ellis close the Hanging Rock show with the song Ghosteen Speaks, where Nick sings, in the spectral voice of his late son “I am beside you, I am beside you…”

All this said, I hit play last night, not sure I’d make it through much of the show, but wanted to give it a go. I was almost immediately enraptured and riveted, without even realizing it. The delivery, the feeling, Warren and Nick’s love for each other, Nick smiling at the band and the backup singers, Colin Greenwood from Radiohead on bass. Throughout the concert there are cutaway interviews with folks at the show, most of whom echo my own feelings of being there all along for Nick’s growth, as an artist and human being. It was beautiful.

Years ago, on the eve of going to have my first record mastered, I had a dream where Nick and I were sitting in a pub somewhere, in a horseshoe shaped booth of the deepest red velvet and black wood. He looked at me and said “So, you’re going Hollywood?” I didn’t know what he meant, but thought it was cool to have a dream where we were hanging out. Turns out the studio I’d booked was abruptly commercial and managed by someone full of himself, who was blathering on about some Hollywood starlet who had just been in to try her hand at being a singer. Nick had given me the heads up.

Since then, he’s visited me overnight a few times. It happened again last night. He and I were wandering through field, farmland, and country roads, talking quietly together. He was leading the way the entire time, as though showing me the way. We parted at a petrol station, where he jumped on a Vespa and sped off down the road, muttering something about having to get back to work.

I’m so thankful for the gift of writing. As I write this, I feel a greater understanding. There’s so much in our dreams. And so much in our judgement of others. There’s so much we know inherently, but it’s not physical or cognitive, so it goes unrecognized while we try so hard to fit the mould of a world that’s been set up so fucking backwards. Our magic is beaten out of us from the time we are born. We are taught to forget: We are Divine.

I chose today’s quote, from the Bad Seeds The Weeping Song, for two reasons. The band did a bang up version of the song at the concert, with a newly minted groove, but also because of this particular verse. I think it’s only as more experienced beings that we feel true, deep sadness, in the face of all that we’ve lost and all that we long to return to.

Love,

K. xo