On Magnetic East: The Deer Tick Sessions, Ben Vaughn hands his songs to Deer Tick and gives himself an unusual assignment: let the band surprise him. The ten-song collaboration puts the veteran songwriter in the unfamiliar position of discovering arrangements as he steps up to sing them. For someone accustomed to writing, playing, arranging, and producing, surrendering that much control becomes an adventure of its own.

Vaughn brings decades of musical curiosity to the experiment. Alongside his recording career, he has produced artists including Ween and Los Straitjackets, composed music for 3rd Rock from the Sun and That ’70s Show, and shared his wide-ranging record collection through the syndicated radio program The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn. His résumé reflects a musician happy to follow a good idea wherever it leads.

Deer Tick makes a fitting partner. Emerging from Providence, Rhode Island, as John McCauley’s solo project in 2004, the group developed into a band whose music draws on folk, country, blues, and unruly rock ’n’ roll. Their affection for Vaughn’s songwriting was already established when they covered “Too Sensitive for This World” on 2019’s Mayonnaise. These sessions take that appreciation a step further, bringing the songwriter into McCauley’s home studio, housed in a Rhode Island mule barn.

Vaughn and Deer Tick share production duties, with drummer Dennis Ryan engineering from behind his kit and Vanessa Carlton contributing backing vocals on two tracks. Vaughn’s method of staying out of the band’s way was admirably practical: read the Providence newspaper in the control room, sometimes with the speakers muted, until an arrangement was ready. Deer Tick already understood his songwriting; now they had permission to follow their own instincts with it.

Those instincts take the songs in several directions. “Danish Modern,” introduced to the band through an iPhone demo played on octave mandolin, becomes a driving rocker with a pair of growling guitar solos. “When Love Returns” makes a similarly unexpected turn, exchanging Vaughn’s original conception of an Engelbert Humperdinck-style ballad for bright guitars and an assertive solo. “Rain Songs” offers a quieter invitation, pairing mandolin, piano, and Carlton’s harmonies with a scene of two people waiting out a storm beside the radio. Elsewhere, “Look What the Cat Dragged In” takes a detour into ska.

There’s a generous idea behind Magnetic East: knowing a song inside out can still leave room for someone else to hear possibilities you missed. Vaughn supplies the writing, Deer Tick supplies a fresh perspective, and their shared curiosity gives this collaboration a reason to exist beyond the names on its cover.