Mike Bones is New Jersey-born songwriter Mike Strallow, who lives and works in New York City. Of his pseudonym, Strallow offers: "Bones is a nickname a friend gave to me when I was a kid.

Making records as Mike Bones removes my voice from the song, at least in my own mind and leaves a song's meaning and intention ambiguous.

I don't have to show my cards." Although Bones has been writing songs for years, worked as a guitar player for The Mighty Flashlight, Damon McMahon, and Lizzie Trulie, and is a member of cult favorites Soldiers of Fortune (a band featuring members of Oneida, Home, and Oakley Hall), The Sky Behind the Sea marks his debut solo recording.

The recording of the album began casually, conceived more as a personal experiment than a public statement.

In August 2006 Mike began recording with Barry London at the Ocropolis, the Brooklyn studio owned by London and the band Oneida, and first publicly performed songs from this record in September of that year.

Over the following months, he spent his time in the studio making music with friends. The players included bassist Brad Truax (Home, White Magic), drummers Parker Kindred (Antony and the Johnsons) and Oran Canfield (Child Abuse), pianists Wilder Zoby (El-P, Chin Chin) and Patrick Sullivan (Oakley Hall), and cellist Kirsten McCord.

Labelmate Samara Lubelski contributed violin while Barry London played synthesizers and engineered the sessions.

"I showed everyone the songs very quickly, maybe just a verse and a chorus. We recorded very loose takes because I didn't want anything like a definitive version of any one song.

I wanted to feel like I was playing these songs for the first time." The resulting album is a collection of songs akin to the later recordings of Leonard Cohen, where the literary and folk-based nature of his work became "contaminated" by a seemingly incongruous and vulgar computerized instrumentation.

Mike Bones' songs certainly come from the folk tradition, but they leave behind the front porch, communal vibes for a much starker aesthetic.

Although Mike Bones is a stellar guitar player, his focus has always been one of a lyrical nature.

"I definitely tried to become a good guitar player, but never in a disciplined way. I heard something I liked on an old record and copied it as best I could.

But I sit down at my desk everyday and write. I never in my life sat down to practice the guitar." The songs on The Sky Behind The Sea have the authority and insight of a man twice Mike's age, and a clarity and purpose matched by few songwriters.