Daily Thumbprint Collection 3, The Wandering is an astonishing album, an instrumental wonder whose creation spanned more than ten years, thousands of miles, a galaxy of musical genres, and a small army of rock, classical and jazz musicians across the USA. Its creator, American composer and drummer Caleb Dolister, imagined a through-composed statement of groove-driven rock and beyond-genre music constructed with electric and acoustic instruments. Recording The Wandering evolved into a decade-long odyssey, a musical journey across North America with equipment hauled in cars and planes, visits to cities spanning the coasts, all to track two dozen musicians (the equivalent of a small orchestra or big band!) and a mountain of music refined through to multiple revisions. The end result is an album of gorgeous, multi-layered, spacious, and rhythmic compositions, distilled - like fine bourbon - through expertise and time.

Fans of avant-progressive and post-jazz and rock music like Jaga Jazzist, Mike Oldfield, Electric Masada, Steve Tibbetts, Tortoise, and Cinematic Orchestra will be enthralled. The Wandering feels both cinematic and powerful, beautiful, and dark. The musicians called upon contributed top-notch performances, and while very few of the players had the chance to record together, the resulting ensemble is stunning. The compositions are filled with compelling soundscapes that embrace an array of instrumentation through layers of contrasting but complementary environments like orchestral strings with odd-meter backbeats, or woodwinds floating over synth bass lines. There is a strong rock foundation in heavy grooves, reinforced at times by distorted guitars and screaming melodies. From the album’s first note until the last, the music’s peaks and valleys are sculpted and the arc flows with intention from one song to the next. The Wandering, says Dolister, is best experienced in its entirety, as an album. He describes his writing process as structured and revisional, with most compositions taking years to refine before being ready to start tracking parts. But despite being recorded across lengthy distances in miles and time, listeners will find The Wandering to be a remarkably coherent and mature tour de force, a gem refined over a decade.

Daily Thumbprint Collection 3, The Wandering includes 10 songs (plus an exclusive bonus track if purchased through the Orenda Records Bandcamp); track titles include the date when each composition was started and a reference to a specific memory in the journey.  It is the third album in Dolister’s Daily Thumbprint Collection series, a solo-project with its early roots in electronic post-rock featuring sequencing and live drums. The first album titled as Daily Thumbprint Collection was released in 2008 and followed by an EP in 2015 titled Daily Thumbprint Collection 2, Stencils, both on SNP Records.

Currently based in New York City, Caleb Dolister (b. 1981), is a composer, drummer, and engineer. He was raised by musician parents; his father is a bassist, and his mother, a singer, guitarist, and pianist. While his musical training included jazz performance at the University of Nevada in Reno, Dolister’s roots formed years before while performing with the family band as a kid, and evolved as a teenager when he created a punk rock and metal band with his friends. Today, he is better known for his tenure with Parisian-based post-jazz ensemble The Kandinsky Effect (Cuneiform Records & Ropeadope Records) and LA’s spontaneous-composition metal/jazz/electronic quintet DR. MiNT. He also performs, writes, and records with a diverse array of additional edgy projects rooted in jazz and rock alike including NYC groups Up & Orange (jam rock) and Twin Whales (Rock). His work is featured on more than 40 albums, released on Orenda Records, Cuneiform Records, Ropeadope Records, pfMentum, Nine Winds, New World Records, SPAT!, SNP Records, Air Tahoe Records, Northern Tone, and others. In addition, Dolister founded and runs the independent record label SNP Records, and developed a digital music distribution platform, called Tunepatch, which he provides free to musicians. Dolister also works as a web developer and consultant.

The making of Caleb Dolister’s Daily Thumbprint Collection, 3

In 2008, I released my first self-produced album and called it Daily Thumbprint Collection. It was a compilation of a couple of years worth of electronic-ish midi compositions with the exception that I recorded myself playing real drums. For a first-time solo project, it turned out pretty cool and had a vibe. Making it inspired me to want more. Before it was even released, I had already started writing a follow-up album and instead of midi, the next project would exclusively feature live musicians. I assumed it would take 1-2 years to write and another 1-2 years to travel around and track the players. I set out to write an album less influenced by electronic sounds, and more influenced by rock/prog music but with some symphonic instruments like strings and horns. But what began as a cool idea ended up using enough parts and instruments to require a small orchestra. It took over a decade to complete.

This was not the kind of recording project where I booked a studio and hired nearby musicians to come and record parts. I wrote for many of the instruments with specific musicians in mind, most of them close friends that I had met over the years through various touring and projects. Unfortunately, they were also spread out across the country. If I wanted them, I would have to travel. I also wrote for instruments that I did not have contacts for, and in those cases, I had to rely on recommendations. This recording was responsible for introducing me to a lot of incredible players I may not have had the chance to work with otherwise. 

That journey brought me from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Nashville to Reno, and finally wrapped in New York City. I flew several times in airplanes with my heavy interface carried by hand through airports. I drove thousands of miles between cities. During one of my trips, I not only survived a major car accident but so did my drums and recording equipment, including the laptop with years of work on this project and the hard drive with all the backups. I still remember the smell of pulling everything from the wreckage of my totaled SUV with fire and smoke still in the air. I tracked musicians in storage units, college offices, bedrooms, living rooms, occasionally a studio, and thankfully only once in a woodshop warehouse where I had to set up my recording interface and laptop on a giant table saw. I was recording instruments that I had never imagined recording, clumsily placing multiple microphones in the hopes that one of them would be a good source.  Everything was new and untested. After tracking was completed, I had thousands of takes to edit between all the parts and instruments in each song. I later found out the hard way that some of the sources also had problems. In one example, I could hear police sirens in the background. It quickly became a behemoth to edit and mix. I mixed it to near completion but burned out before eventually coming back to start it all over again, multiple times. In 2014, I took a hiatus from the project to write and release a separate EP which I called Daily Thumbprint Collection, 2: Stencils (released in 2015). After a year had passed, I jumped back into this mix and finally finished in late 2018. 

All of that said, I couldn’t be more proud of how this project turned out. I also could not be more thankful to all the musicians that contributed their amazing efforts. Listening to the project today reminds me that a decade has passed. Honestly, I don’t think I could write the same album now, even if I tried. In some ways, that makes it feel a little ironic to announce it as new, but it also makes it feel new to me, again. I hope you enjoy Daily Thumbprint Collection, 3.

For more information, and dailythumbprint.com.

All Compositions by Caleb Dolister (ASCAP)
℗© 2020 Daily Thumbprints (ASCAP)
All Rights Reserved.

Engineering, Mixing, & Production by Caleb Dolister
Recorded 2009-2014 & Mixed in 2018
Mastered by Sam Minaie, Bird Food Studio New York

Musicians (A-Z by last name)
Adam Agati, Guitar (Marcus Miller, The Funk Apostles)
Adam Benjamin, Rhodes (Kneebody) 
Dorothy Bowers Wu, Flute
Caleb Dolister, Drums 
Peter Epstein, Saxophone (Director of Jazz Studies at University of Nevada, Reno) 
Garett Grow, Piano 
Ryan Hall, Guitar (Dark Corners, Cranium Galactic Orchestra(Cranium)) 
James Hoover, Saxophones and Effects
Drew Jorgensen, Vibraphone 
Sam Minaie, Electric Bass (Melody Gardot, Tigran Hamasyan, DR. MiNT) 
Alex Noice, Guitar (Noice, Dr. MiNT, Vinny Golia) 
Charlie Pate, Mandolin
Charith Premawardhana, Viola (Classical Revolution) 
Dan Rosenboom, Trumpet (Burning Ghosts, DR. MiNT) 
Marina Roznitovsky Oster, Harp (Reno Philharmonic Orchestra, University of Nevada, Reno) 
Tristan Selzler, Trombone & Accordion (Reno Jazz Syndicate) 
Perry Smith, Guitar (New West Guitar Group)
Charles Taggart, Cello 
Adam Theis, Trombone & Tuba (Jazz Mafia) 
Gavin Templeton, Saxophone (DR. MiNT, Nels Cline, Vinny Golia) 
Zack Teran, Upright Bass (Portalis, Y La Bamba, The Novelists)
Brian Walsh, Clarinet & Bass Clarinet 
Kati Wentink, Viola and Violin (Reno Philharmonic Orchestra) 

The idea of this album formed in late 2008 and took over 10 years to complete while I traveled around the country to record and edit thousands of audio takes. The recording process brought me to studios, practice sheds, college campuses, people’s bedrooms and living rooms, and even the occasional warehouse. Each city I traveled to was an experience and every session was inspiring. To say I learned a lot would be an understatement. Without the generosity of all the musicians involved, none of this would have been possible. My thanks to all involved for breathing life into my compositions. - Caleb Dolister

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