"I first got to know Tim Zieger and his songs in 2008 when I joined a nameless folk-band project with him and his then-fiancée, Abi. Careful poetry, transubstantial imagery, and adventurous melody marked all his contributions to our repertoire. So when Tim, nearly ten years later, began to write and record an album of songs entirely his own, I couldn’t wait to hear what he would do. North Light—crystalline and haunted—blew my mind. The concept of ‘north light’ is an almost superstitious belief among painters dating back hundreds of years: indirect light, the kind available exclusively through a north-facing window sheds light evenly throughout the day on both canvas and subject. With this cool and steady perspective Tim sings of mortality across generations and the struggle against time in the search for meaning. The second verse of “Grandfathers” jumps out as an excellent example. A portrait of a grandfather who died long ago serves as both a window into the past and, for a grandson wrestling with his own finitude, a glimpse into the future. And though some songwriters might use a moment like this for sentiment and eulogy, in North Light a sober-minded glow falls evenly across all things. This album is not for the faint of heart. North Light showcases Tim Zieger’s immense compositional and multi-instrumental talent. Sad brass bands and chatty trumpets give space to lingering lyrics. Pianos and guitars dance, sometimes in the center, sometimes in the margins. Percussion sections leap out of second verse shadows. Distant horns and disembodied voices issue chills down spines. Elsewhere elements split apart and coalesce like the wind through the trees in the Endless Mountains where this music was born. Perhaps it should be said that this is not barbeque music. North Light is a quintessential winter album: lean, lonesome, and full of longing. Each of these songs speaks with deliberate and measured depth. North Light is for listeners who listen. It’s for parents, children, young, old, and anyone who’s looked up at the moon and wondered where the years have gone." - Seth Mitchell Songwriter, Composer, Multi-instrumentalist, Linguist (USAF) North Light was recorded during the winter of 2016 in my garage-turned-studio in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. It came out of a particularly pensive time, and sounds so. In it, I sought to express the persistent longing for meaning and contentment that troubles my mind. I did not intend to leave the longing completely unresolved, though I don't claim to have discovered a definite resolution. Instead, in the process of exploring the longing I saw hope in the imperfection of life, in the clarity of childhood, in beauty, and in the finitude of a place--in a family, in time, among all things. The songs and the album are deeply and carefully crafted, lyrically and musically. I don't intend to reveal everything here because I don't know that I could easily express all that is in the songs better than they, and because I want listeners to discover the depth of meaning and coherence that is in them and that is in the album. I have always enjoyed listening to songs and albums that reward multiple careful listens. I wanted to make an album like that. I'll let listeners judge whether I have, because I cannot. I played all of the instruments myself--for better or worse--because it was expedient and cost effective, and I was in an introspective frame of mind. Most of the instruments were in various stages of ill repair, not least of which my $50 upright piano which became a perfect instrument on which to practice piano tuning and rehab. My wife complimented my voice with her own, providing backing vocals on many tracks, and my father's paintings are the artwork of the album and a great deal of the inspiration for the songs and the album theme (and title). The album was mostly an in-house, family affair. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I recorded everything on Audacity using one or two mics. My very skilled audio engineer, Clyde Rosencrance, did a remarkable job making the recordings presentable. A careful listener may still be able to pick up the click of an electric space heater, the (serendipitous) crow of a rooster, and the persistent noise of my cheap pre-amp, but I hope that the songs are still able to communicate. Thank you for listening. - Timothy Zieger