We were right. After listening to 2006’s rough-but-really-good Together With Cats, we predicted that Blake Miller‘s sophomore effort would altogether astonish and impress. Okay, maybe we didn’t write those exact words, but that’s exactly what happened.

Frankly, we were a little concerned that Burn Tape wouldn’t happen at all. When Miller’s home-recorded debut Together With Cats came out back in late 2006, an insider at Exit Stencil Records promised a quick follow-up. You can imagine the surprise, then, when we received a smartly-packaged compact disc a distant 2.x years later.

According to Exit Stencil:

In the interim two years Blake Miller has continued to record songs at a frightening pace—primarily alone and in his bedroom—all the while honing a more distinctive and personal style that is becoming all the more difficult to compare to other musicians.  More than his unique falsetto (at times approximating Tim Buckley), multi-tracked vocals, use of found sounds, and unique instrumentation, it is Blake’s ability to surprise the listener with the direction and structure that the songs take that make him an anomaly in an indie world that is all too often predictable.

In an interview with Orange Alert, Miller explains:

[Burn Tape] was written and recorded over late 2007 and all of 2008. Mostly all of it was recorded on my own, except for “The Rain Is All Around Me.” I’m happy with it. I’m just glad I am finally getting another album out there.

So are we.

Exit Stencil has graciously made available some Mp3s  from Burn Tape, so check out In the Danger, Long Hair, and When the Sky Turns to Black (The Rain is All Around), then buy the album. It’s primarily available on cassette (a la old-days Daniel Johnston), but each purchase comes with all the Mp3s.