Photo by Brigitte Henry

Today, Brad Barr – the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of The Barr Brothers – has announced The Winter Mission, an instrumental collection of solo guitar work out Jan. 21 via Secret City Records. Barr also shared the first single off the album titled “ANCIENT CALENDARS.”

“‘ANCIENT CALENDARS’ is a solo guitar piece, a long-form improvisation where I explore a basic motif and progressively extend it outwards in two directions,” Barr stated in a press release. “I played it on an amplified 12-string acoustic guitar. There are no overdubs. That was the idea while writing and recording this music – one person playing music alone without any accompaniment. As with all the songs on this record, the title ‘ANCIENT CALENDARS’ is a reference to the number 216 – specifically, how in the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar, a single cycle, or ‘age,’ consisted of 2,160 years. It’s also believed that the entire calendar of five great cycles is equal to 2,160 orbits of Jupiter. If they could think that far ahead, you’d think I’d be able to remember my wedding anniversary.”

For over 20 years, Barr has been counting the number 216, finding it in clocks, license plates, Ouija boards, receipts, as an area code, and now it has sewn the very fabric of his newest work like the 216 stitches on a baseball.

Listen to “ANCIENT CALENDARS” below:

Pre-order The Winter Mission here.