This month’s Spotlight is a fantastic Americana effort that shines from top to bottom with excellent writing, arrangement, performance and production throughout. From the start, we were captivated by Dustin’s genre-perfect composition. While our focus centers on technical aspects, a good song is a good song and “Hello Hello” fits that bill.

As for the technical, we found every sound source here equal to the quality of the writing. The rhythm section propels the track with subtlety and taste, we love the brush work on the snare, and the acoustic bass is beautifully captured with no low-end boom or woofy tones. The fiddle and pedal steel guitar provide a wonderful, yearning atmosphere that supports Dustin’s lyric content.

Once again, a superior arrangement carries forth here. The weave of the slightly panned fiddle and pedal steel was mesmerizing and perfectly served the song with well-chosen fills. Dustin delivers a heartfelt vocal superbly captured by Brian. The Blue Cactus/Neve 1073LB mic and preamp combo shines as one would expect, not only here but also on the acoustic guitar, bass, fiddle and drums. Lastly, we must congratulate Brian for his beautiful mix down. We found all of the sound sources to be ideally placed – vocals slightly upfront, rhythm section set back and the panned fiddle and steel providing some width to the proceedings. Nice.