They’d never met until they discovered their mutual admiration for writer Jack Kerouac. Jay Farrar of Son Volt and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie were both at a San Francisco recording session in 2007, working on music for a Jim Sampas documentary about Jack Kerouac. After completing that project, Farrar and Gibbard decided to work on some music based on words by Kerouac. They would choose Big Sur, Kerouac’s 1962 novel, and write 12 songs. Together, they comprise One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur, available here in its entirety for the week leading up to its Oct. 20 release. via NPR

I’ve never read a Jack Kerouac novel before so I can’t attest to the accuracy of the lyrics that I’m listening to but I can say that I have always enjoyed Gibbard vocals so the project is already in my win category. You can tell that Farrar wrote most of the songs as they tend to have a bit of twang to them but with the mix of twang and Gibbard’s voice it’s a nice combination.

One thing that I am still very unclear about is whether this album is the soundtrack to the documentary or if after Farrar and Gibbard recorded a track for the documentary they recorded this album. Anyone want to clear that up for me? Nothing I’ve read has explained that well.

The album comes out October 20th but you can listen to it now on NPR.