CREDIT: MELISSA FISHER
Ryder Havdale, the mind behind The Mohawk Lodge, finds inspiration in his family's cabin.

I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. There is something about Damaged Goods — the latest full-length album by The Mohawk Lodge — that sparks my imagination towards travel.

Released on White Whale Records in October, Damaged Goods possesses an immediate sense of movement; like an album you don't start listening to in the car until you've settled in on the road, this captures the momentum of an adventure already in progress. And perhaps fittingly so — it was born on a highway.

Ryder Havdale began The Mohawk Lodge somewhere around 2000 as an outlet for music that fell outside of his other bands at the time. Finding direction in a cabin in Point Roberts, Washington, he's composed and released the group's first couple of records on his White Whale imprint, performing them with a rotating list of musicians and friends.

Pivotal to his writing process, the cabin belongs to family and is a place at which he sojourns for a couple of months every year.

"For inspiration, I need a certain amount of chaos around my life," he explained. "But then, I need to go somewhere for a month or two and have the exact opposite and process what I've been through."

After a couple of releases — and his other bands broke up — Havdale moved to Toronto to continue to evolve The Mohawk Lodge. The move influenced the sound of 2010's sophomore effort Crimes and set in motion the events that led here to Damaged Goods, a lean indie rock album with genuine rhythm and lo-fi pop appeal.

The album was inspired and written one December while touring through Europe with a group of musicians in support of Crimes. In fact, Havdale was so inspired by the life and culture in Europe that he has relocated to Berlin, where he based his last few months of touring.

"I was just like, 'I'll go to Berlin for a couple of weeks,' and then I got there, and it is such a different world," Havdale recalled, describing living above a live venue close to where the Wall came down in East Berlin. "There was live music every night; I was literally living right above the stage. It was rad."

An album of ironies, Damaged Goods inherits a sense of honesty in its immediacy and exudes confidence. "Howling At The Moon" begins with all the fondness of a conversation between friends and wastes no time in guiding the pace of the album, leading into the energetic "Wild Dogs" and the soulful single "Light You Up" before you're even five minutes into the disc.

Recorded with the same musicians that inspired them on tour, these songs shine with careful optimism despite their various themes of love or affliction. As well as documenting the high-paced urban European touring life, Damaged Goods celebrates the human behind the imperfection.

The coming year holds a lot of promise for Havdale, who is likely in Point Roberts at the time of this printing, rewriting music and preparing for sessions to record a new album in a few weeks. After his return to Berlin following the next few months of touring, one can only presume to wonder the sort of chaos he will have experienced and wait as patiently as possible to hear the music to come from it.

For more on Havdale and The Mohawk Lodge, visit on Facebook or follow on Twitter @themohawklodge. The band just spent November in Europe and December crossing Canada, but watch for them to appear in Toronto for Canadian Music Week in March before embarking on a tour of the United States in April and May.

And for more of the latest music news, views and recommendations, consider following this column on Twitter @fsu_bobbyisms. Don't let the winter drain your spirit, get out to some great FSU events this month. Exams are closer than you think! I'm out of words.