During the gestation of his 2002 album Impasse, which has received a new vinyl pressing from Merge Records, Richard Buckner was stuck. But, with perseverance, what began as one of his most troubled recording attempts ended as one of his best and most pivotal - a capstone for his wayfaring early period before he planted roots with Merge. Around the time that The Hill was released in 2000, Buckner was finishing his second pass at Impasse. He was living in a loop, traveling back and forth on temporary work visas between the states and Canada, where he was living at the time. He bought a 24-track digital recorder, an eighties Roland synthesizer, and an Echoplex tape-delay unit then spent the next year tracking in his Alberta basement with a live-in drummer.

The album was conceived as a faceted whole. Its lyrics are like scattered snapshots and torn-up letters. The song titles form a poem that structures a story of heartache and dreamt redemption cloistered at the music’s core. Impressions, pledges, and slivered vantages swirl in Buckner’s voice and, while his frustrations at the time of Impasse were only part of the twist, its transmission is so open-ended that the aura of quiet desperation and hardwon grace is yours to use as you please. "You don't really know what you're writing at the time," Buckner says. "Writing seems to be kind of prophetic and it makes much more sense looking back on it. But I think mystery is good. If you ever think you know what you're doing, then you're probably in bad shape."

LP contains full album download + digital bonus.