Five years ago, I took my extremely low-budget recording studio into my bathroom on a random Saturday and shut the door. I set up my laptop and microphone, picked up my guitar, and got to work recording an EP called “the bathroom sessions,” in which I just did live takes of some of my songs. It was really terrible. Earlier this summer, I was reminded of that project and had the idea to reimagine it with my slightly more high-tech studio setup. I would record the whole thing in my bathroom and keep the arrangements simple, just like the first time, with only acoustic guitar and vocals, but this time I would record them separately and add backing vocals, because that’s really the secret to my success. BUT, since I was emulating my live project, I was going to do each track in a single take so it would sound live. A daunting task, because if I sounded great at the beginning and bad enough in the middle that it was really noticeable, I knew I would just have to start over. With five songs and about a month of putting this together, “almost bare” is real, it’s raw, and it’s me. While I know I am talented, I know that I am also a very imperfect musician, which is something I like to celebrate in my recordings. After all, some of my “mistakes” have actually improved upon my work. So this is me, *almost* bare.