Kraig Jordan doesn’t work fast. Change Me Back, the Providence singer and songwriter’s first record with his collective, The Masons, came out in 1999 and took years to make; he got started writing songs for this year’s Let Me Down Easy as soon as that was done.

Jordan, a former member of such local bands as Subgum, The Followers and Uber Alles, has a family and a full-time job, as do most of the people he brings in to help him make his records, so writing, rewriting and recording songs takes longer for Jordan and The Masons than most.

“The biggest challenge is getting other people on board to do it with you,” Jordan says. “You can’t do it alone. Well, I guess some people can — I can’t.”

Because it was impossible to get the right people together for any length of time, Jordan says, the songs on Let Me Down Easy were recorded part by part in Jordan’s home studio in his garage; no two players recorded their parts together. This made for painstaking work that took about a year, Jordan says. “If there’s 12 tracks other than the drum set, you’ve got to go through every time, and play it maybe five takes or whatever to get it right.”

There were positives to working slowly, though: “It let me weed out stuff that I thought at the time ‘Wow! This is really good!’ but don’t stand up to the others.” When approached by Providence’s 75orless Records, Jordan had 50 demos of songs together; he whittled those down to 20 at the start of the recording process, and 14 songs made it to the record.

Not only was there an editing process, but like his heroes such as The Beatles, he got to try songs with different instrumentation, different production techniques and different musical styles, often with the help of collaborator Don Sanders (late of Medicine Ball), whom Jordan calls “a brilliant songwriter [with] a great pop sense.”

The result is one of the more varied local rock releases of recent years, with a palette ranging from the nervously snarling opener “Preemptive Denial” to the “dead boyfriend song” “Gone Forever” (with guest vocals by Sarah Lupo) to the joyous dog ode “Theo.” The segue from the noisy “Comedown Baby” to the acoustic intro of “Paper Trail” is a particularly nice gear change.

“Not even to compare myself to The Beatles,” Jordan says, “but they would do a variety of different styles on a record.” He recalls listening to more contemporary rock records (an Urge Overkill record was his particular example) and thinking “I like their sound, but that’s all you get, is a sound. …

“I have a big interest in the recording process, too. So I’ll try different things. If there’s a style that I like, I’ll try to figure out how they did it. … It makes it more exciting than just setting up the mikes.”

The live version of The Masons contains some Rhode Island pop royalty, featuring members and former members of Velvet Crush, Medicine Ball and Throwing Muses (Jeffrey Underhill on keys, Sanders on acoustic guitar, Scott Rancourt on bass, Dave Wall and Jordan on electric guitar and Dave Narcizo on drums). They’ve got three shows set up for the summer, Jordan says, and he doesn’t foresee getting many more than that.

They all have jobs, and most have families, so touring is, for all intents and purposes, out. Besides, it’s hard enough getting everyone together for a rehearsal; when that happens, Jodran says, he wants to concentrate on new stuff.

“Now that we have the set down, we’re not working on anything new. I’m trying to limit the number of shows so we can actually practice and work on new things, not just run through the set. …

“I’m hoping to do something very quickly with some new material that we’re working on, and do it in a more traditional way, and do it as a band and get it done. I’ve kind of exhausted that other process now.”

The Masons open the Locals Rule! Show at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, 79 Washington St., Providence, tomorrow night at 7:45 p.m. Tickets are $10 and the show is all-ages; call (401) 331-5876.