Reid Genauer, the singer-songwriter and frontman of Assembly of Dust and Strangefolk, is revisiting the various ebbs and flows in his decades-long catalog with the 100-song This is What I Saw, a stripped-down re-recording of his entire songbook broken into five “seens.” The first “seen” of This is What I Saw is now available to stream on major streaming services as well as nugs.
The process of inspiration behind the ambitious process was cyclical: In 2024, Genauer performed a run of “career-spanning” shows in Boulder, CO during which he repeated no songs and performed material from throughout his songwriting journey. One fan named Peter Nogas was so inspired by the ambitious run that he drew a 36″ x 24″ pen and ink illustration of 100 of Read’s songs in a detailed visual array.
As Genauer explained to Live For Live Music, “I had seen the 100-song pen-and-ink drawing Pete Nogas so generously made many times before I truly saw it. At first, it registered as spectacle: a monument looming over my living room wall. There was pride, too—the kind that comes from realizing an artist of Pete’s caliber cared enough to pour himself into something so obsessive and generous. And yes, there was a quiet, smug internal monologue when friends came over that went something like: ‘Hey, I have 100 songs—also, check out this shrine to them.'”
“Then one morning, half awake and holding a cup of deeply mediocre coffee, I actually saw the drawing,” he added. “What I saw wasn’t spectacle—it was a map. An atlas of my life. I’ll spare you the more psychedelic aspects of that realization unless you’re working closely with a mental-health professional. The part that matters is simpler: I saw the songs. The characters, the places, the actions, the faces. An alternate universe I’ve lived in for decades, suddenly visible from the outside. So I did what any reasonable, impulsive lunatic would do. I decided to record all 100 songs.”
Reid Genauer – This Is What I Saw Album Cover Art
He quickly set up shop at EchoBrain drummer Brian Sagrafena’s cabin-like Sloth Mountain Studios studio in La Honda, CA and recorded the 100 songs Nogas had illustrated in five days—just his voice and guitar. “The math was deceptively simple. One hundred songs. Five days. Twenty songs a day. A quick finger-in-the-wind calculation suggested this was entirely doable. It wasn’t—but I was committed. To match the spare, black-and-white sophistication of the drawing, the recordings had to be equally stripped down. That meant just me, a handful of guitars, and one giraffe-like banjitar. I mostly played my Martin D-35 and an old, banged-up classical guitar. One of Neil Young’s Martins was on loan, though it saw less action than you might expect.
“Most songs were one or two takes,” he added. “They’re raw. In some I missed a verse; in others I added one. Love it or hate it, these recordings live in an alternate universe—one where the truth of the songs, not the perfection of the performance, rules supreme.”
“My kids were there too,” Genauer added of the experience. “With the help of Jason Cirimele, I had a small team rooting for me. Even though I was performing alone, I wasn’t doing it alone. Music plays the band. I’ve lived in the jam-band world my entire career. More accurately, it has lived in me—and I’m better for it. I love screaming guitars and the conversational language of musicians speaking in sonic color with each other and the audience. This project is a different kind of conversation. It lives on the quieter side of the same songs. It asks more questions than it makes declarations. So find a calm time and place and inhale a few songs—or crank the ever-loving hell out of it while driving. Either way, this is what I saw. I hope these songs give you a lens to see a little more clearly, too.”
Stream the first “seen” from This Is What I Saw by Reid Genauer below, featuring 20 tracks from the ambitious project, on the platform of your choice here or via the player below. You can also find the lyrics to all 100 of the original songs Reid Genauer recorded for the project here.
Reid Genauer – What I Saw (Seen One) – Full Album
With a professional music career spanning several decades, Reid Genauer has established himself as a prominent figure in the folk-rock scene, captivating audiences with his heartfelt lyrics and soulful performances. He first came to prominence as the frontman of Burlington, VT jam-rock outfit Strangefolk in the early ’90s and has maintained his involvement with the group despite its now-sporadic activity (the group last performed live in 2019 but has never officially disbanded). Assembly of Dust, the band Genauer formed in the early 2000s, has garnered widespread acclaim for its intricate musical style and magnetic stage presence. From intimate acoustic sets to electrifying live performances, Genauer and Assembly of Dust continue to inspire audiences with their craft.
Follow Reid’s various social media here for more updates and forthcoming releases from This Is What I Saw.