Miles and Mafale – “This House”
Americana Highways brings you this premiere of Miles and Mafale’s song ‘This House” from their forthcoming album Be Brave, which is slated for release this fall. The album was produced by Catherine Miles and Jay Mafale; mixed and mastered by Phil Henry; and recorded by Jay Mafale with additional recording by Eric Puente, Jason Rafalak, and Brad Yoder.
“This House” is Catherine Miles on lead and harmony vocals; Jay Mafale on guitars, harmony vocals, shaker, tambourine, hand claps, and ukulele; Eric Puente on drums, congas, and djembe; Jason Rafalak on upright bass; Paul Silverman on keyboards and accordion; and Brad Yoder on soprano saxophone and glockenspiel.
Like a turtle, almost all of us carry the imprints of the houses we grew up in on our backs, and this song asks us to consider what if, instead, like a hermit crab, we shed all of that for a new one. Lilting vocals and a thoughtful lovely folk song.
This is not a song about a house, despite the fact that we do live in the house that one of us grew up in. It is house as metaphor for how we live inside our emotional history, especially the negative stuff, especially from childhood. Without realizing it, all that history surrounds and underpins our decisions and choices and how we interact with other people, often in ways that aren’t good for us and don’t make us happy. Wouldn’t it be a better world if we all decided we didn’t have to live that way? — Catherine Miles
Find more information here: https://milesandmafale.com/
Album design for Be Brave was done by Catherine Miles and Paul Silverman. All photos and artwork were courtesy of Catherine Miles, except photographs of Catherine & Jay taken by Paul Silverman.