Three musicians, Alex, Georgia, and Ty, traveled from Guelph to Montreal, hoping to record the album they’d been imagining for years. They had songs. They had time. They almost had money. What they didn’t have was a producer. They met a few. One wore sunglasses indoors and said, “I can make you sound relevant.” Another said compression was a form of emotional repression. A third said, “I’ll find your sound,” and played them a sample of auto-tuned wolves. Still uncertain, they asked Dale Morningstar, the leader of the band “Dinner is Ruined” who recorded his friend Gord Downie’s still unreleased final record. “We want someone who hears us,” Georgia said. “We want someone who doesn’t ruin it,” said Ty. Dale nodded and handed them a pinecone. “Let the pinecone choose,” he said. They stared at the pinecone. Alex asked, “Is this a metaphor?” Dale shrugged. “Yep.”

They left in silence uncertain what to make of him, though they played one of his albums a couple times that had an intriguing song with the chorus “my retina’s burning, retina’s burning.” For three days, the pinecone sat on their dashboard. They argued about tone, direction, warmth, truth, reverb. The pinecone stayed silent. On the fourth day, Georgia knocked it out the window by accident while reaching for gum. They watched it roll into a ditch and land beside a crow. Ty said, “Well, that settles that.” Alex said, “Settles what?” Georgia smiled. “It doesn’t matter who produces it. What matters is we started listening.” That night, they recorded a demo using one mic, one take, and no effects. It was their best work so far. The pinecone, for its part, asked for no royalties.