In the late 1800s, Globe Factory No. 23 was the leading producer of clear Havana cigars for the Seidenberg Cigar Co. Today, 135 years later, Globe Factory No. 23 reemerges as the solo recording project of Rob Seidenberg, scion of the original cigar family. 

 

The Rut Not Taken, GF23's debut album, began as an outlet for some of the ideas Seidenberg developed while working with other artists as a producer, writer and record company exec. But while the original Globe Factory No. 23 was steadily productive, this modern-day project was an on-again/off-again affair.

 

Seidenberg began work on some of the album’s 13 tunes while working in Los Angeles as (among other things) president of Mammoth Records and a senior A&R man at Hollywood Records and Rykodisc. Others took shape only after he moved to Austin, Texas. It would take more than a decade after the idea was born for Seidenberg (who plays virtually all the instruments) to winnow the material and apply the finishing touches. It was then, in 2012, that he felt he had a collection of songs that (despite their disparate origins) held together artistically and thematically, while reflecting his varied tastes

 

The music on The Rut Not Taken is guitar rock with its Americana roots showing. It has a pop sensibility and catchy choruses, but it is far from shiny. Its lyrics and moods are suffused with melancholia, nostalgia and longing, in songs that look at our at-times confusing world, full of mendacity (often rewarded), inequity (usually un-rectified) and loss.