This was the first Decemberists album on Kill Rock Stars, after Castaways and Cutouts came out on Hush Records. Recorded at Jackpot! and Type Foundry in Portland OR and produced by The Decemberists, Adam Selzer, and Larry Crane.

Only Colin Meloy could get away with lyrics like this:

The bosun calls upon the quay / Compass gone, he long has lost his way / To lighthouse shine, to calm tide / The bosun long has arrived”

or

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise / Seraphim in seaweed swim where stick-limbed Myla lies

Via the merch table at a Decemberists show at Roadrunner in Boston

text, letter
table
a close up of a sign

Includes a fold out, six panel illustration originally created by Carson Ellis. The gallery below has the panels in order.

text
diagram
text, whiteboard