If Jeff Tweedy invites you to record in Wilco's fabled Chicago loft, you accept. Richard Swift was given the offer after he opened for Wilco on their 'Sky Blue Sky' tour. Naturally, Swift took Tweedy up on it, and cut seven songs there in a three-day marathon.

"It's an amazing place really, a very, very big space, and it's packed to the gills with great instruments," Swift tells Spinner. "Jeff would stop by every day and check in, listen to what we were up to, go down YouTube rabbit trails and drink five Diet Cokes."

Most of those tracks made it onto Swift's latest album, 'Atlantic Ocean,' which will hit store shelves on April 7 via Secretly Canadian. As always with Swift, the album has a vintage feel and a warm analog sound. In fact, Swift even used Tweedy's antique tape machine (a Studer A80) for the sessions and then bought it from him for future use. "A lot of great records were recorded on it," says Swift. "We packed it up into my van and headed westward after we finished recording."

Richard Swift will head westward again, sans recorder, beginning April 7, for a jaunt with Vetiver before opening for the Fray at some of the nation's finest summer sheds.