The Scarlet Goodbye, labelled “the most unlikely mash-up in Minnesota Music History,” is the creative combination of Daniel Murphy and Jeff Arundel. Murphy, pivotal in the launch of both Soul Asylum and the super-group Golden Smog, had stepped away from the game in 2012, after 30 years of recording and touring. A chance meeting with mellow singer-songwriter Jeff Arundel led the duo, whose careers spanned the same time frame but had essentially no other resemblance, to start writing and recording.