Folks, I’ve been busy! Repairing and replacing thousands of splices on 60 year old analog tapes, mastering power pop and gospel and bluegrass and electronic and Ethiopian jazz and singer-songwriter records… and managing construction from the ground up of a purpose-built mastering studio in the back of my house… and managing the scope creep that crept in around all that.
The studio was designed by George Augspurger and is being built by Loren Moore Construction. The rest of our home renovation was designed by Robin Pennell of Jarvis Architects, who truly understood the challenges of adding onto a 100+ year old home and didn’t flinch when I requested special features for the studio, like vaulted ceilings and angled walls. This has been a long time coming, and as I’m writing this, the roofers are pounding shingles onto our new roof. I can’t quite say the end is in sight, but probably by the next time I manage to update my website, I’ll be doing so from my brand new mastering studio. Shoutout to foreman Rooster Thompson (my dog).
Over the past year, I have been working with a cracker jack team on preserving a once-in-a-lifetime collection of recordings. We’ll be presenting about our work at the Audio Engineering Society conference in NYC in October. I’m beside myself and truly honored to be getting my hands dirty with the Louis and Bebe Barron collection, hundreds of acetate tapes dating back to the 1950s of their experimental electronic tape-based recordings. So when I say repairing thousands of splices, I mean I am standing on front of my tape machine, painstakingly repairing thousands of splices, because the Barrons spliced with abandon, and that splicing tape has lost all adhesive and poofs into the air when I hit play. It’s a labor of love love love.
Some records I’ve mastered:
This totally sweet cover of a Charli XCX song by Kurt Vile and this cover of a Bob Dylan Christmas song, both featuring Kurt’s daughters.
Switched-On Pachyman, recorded and mixed by the wildly talented Pachy himself. Please check out his videos and catch him on tour!
Hailu Mergia Pioneer Works Swing (Live) - the seventh (!!) album I’ve worked on with this brilliant Ethiopian keyboardist, this one mixed by Ted Young.
Queer darkwave A.S. Valentino’s Dancing With Dysphoria which had me dancing in the studio and cheering every time he sent me a new song.
Hickory’s Batten Down The Hatches, which blew me away with its dreamy textures and melodies, this one written and performed by Gabriel Stern and Peter Mark Kendall and mixed and produced by Daniel Kluger.
Ch’Lu’s The Goddess Within, composed, performed, recorded, mixed and produced by Ch'Lu in her home studio, fusing binaural field-recordings, hypnotic guitar playing and her incredible voice.
Lis Addison’s Songs From The Mara, a gorgeous suite featuring her field recordings of birds, frogs, lions, and water from the Masaai Mara.
A pair of knock-out power pop gems from Reminder Records, painstakingly, meticulously, laboriously, lovingly restored from original tapes by me: Peach & Lee (the lovechild of the Beatles and Badfinger) and Wowii (who I desperately wish I could time travel to see live back in 1977).
Dru Cutlers’s Will To Mend, oh that baritone voice melding with those soundscapes!
Pot Valiant’s Never Return, mastered from original tapes and out on Numero Group, for all you Gilmangaze loving East Bay punk folks.
Amy Irving’s (yes, that Academy Award-winning Amy Irving from Carrie and more!) first album, Born In A Trunk, mixed by Joe Durniak.
And there’s so much more, but I have to get back to work!
