As I get closer to arranging my work life with more time for creative projects, and less time for paid work (all donations, contributions, alms, etc accepted with deep and humble gratitude, and I’ll spend them on something worthwhile, I promise, no really, I will), I find it’s important to support other artists who are devoting time to their passions, too. Here’s one I’m happy to recommend to all of you who, like me, appreciate a truly well-crafted song. Avolition, the self-proclaimed “exploration of pre-geriatric folk pop,” is a five-member band based in Ellensburg, Washington. These guys are engaged in a song-a-week project for 2011 they’re calling “Avolition Demolition.” Halfway through the year, they just posted song number twenty-six. The writer in me loves the way each one tells a small, sometimes silly, but more often moving or important story. The music lover in me just has a great time listening.

Listen through in order, or start with “Take the Time,” a “seize the day anthem” that lifts your spirits (if you aren’t dead already). If you’re in the mood for sweet reflection on love, with even sweeter harmonies, try “Breathin’ In.” When you’re thinking about people in your past, take a listen to “Doin’ Well.” And when you wish whatever you have, or had, or are doing, or were doing, wouldn’t end, that maybe you could “be in a place where time just stood,” as John Hiatt would say, put on “Saving Daylight.” (The line I’d fall to the floor, if you walked through that door – well, we all have someone we long to say that to, don’t we?)

Above all, take this message from “Take the Time” to heart: You can work for what you wish for, you might get it. That’s a line you have to mean to sing right, and Avolition does both.

Here’s the latest “album” posted on the guys’ Bandcamp site. Go there to hear, download, and/or share everything they’ve done so far. And enjoy.

(Psst – Panindias Brothers take note – get yer stuff recorded and posted up, too, so the world can listen!!)