From Portland, Oregon

From last.fm:

Balto came into being when Daniel Sheron abandoned his life in Moscow, Russia and went alone into Siberia. Against an ever shifting backdrop of railways and desolate wastes, he wrote a cycle of folk songs to tell the story of what had happened in that strange country, why he had exiled himself, and why he thought it mattered. In train cars and crumbling cities he encountered People and they inhabited the songs he was writing and the notes he was taking. In the fall, Daniel came back to America and called his friends to record an album in one day. Read more about Balto on Last.fm.