As a music professional, I've become a deeply analytical listener both at work and (for better or worse) when listening for pleasure. When I'm mastering a song, I carefully, purposefully flip my focus between minutiae and the big picture - the snare, the song, the sibilance, the air, the low end of the lead vocals, the album. When I'm listening for pleasure, I can't help falling into analytical traps and hyper-focusing on a single artist, sometimes a single song for days, weeks, months. I had a Them period, followed by a summer of Peter Sarstedt. In the months after my son was born, I alternated listening to Del Shannon and Silver Apples, a lot. Last October, I had a love affair with a single song: "California Dreamin'."

And then there's Scott Walker. He's like my high school boyfriend. I forget him for awhile, but I keep coming back to him. Early Scott, late Scott, baroque pop Scott, avant Scott.

This week, I've been listening to two Scott Walker songs on repeat. Literally. I walk around with headphones on, listening to these songs on a loop. Mostly the Scott Walker versions, but sometimes I dip into Shirley Brown or Ronald Isley versions. I don't know why these two superbly dramatic love songs have captured me, but here you go:

Make It Easy On Yourself - by Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Stay With Me Baby - co-written by Jerry Ragovoy and George David Weiss

(If you like these songs, do yourself a favor and go buy some hi-res versions!)

They are equally theatrical - heart-aching, breath-taking, kissing in the rain, driving fast down PCH1 in a 1967 Porsche 912 passionate - but in totally opposite ways. In Make It Easy On Yourself, he's telling her to go, find happiness, he'll make it alone. In Stay With Me Baby, he's pleading for her to stay, he can't live without her. But that's just the lyrical content. The music, the way he sings, the harmonies, the string arrangements, the timpani, the extra chorus...! Make It Easy On Yourself could have ended at 2:30, Stay With Me Baby could have faded out at 3:00, but oh no, we need that extra chorus!

So, which is it, Scott?

I'm working on a blues archive, a collection of 1/4" analog tapes recorded in the 1950s, 60s and 70s at various clubs (Gerde's Folk City, Sugar Hill, the Ash Grove), in a few professional studios, in people's living rooms. Most of the tapes have minimal labeling, which means I have to figure out the tape format: is it 1/2-track stereo, 1/2-track mono, full-track mono, some other configuration? Is it running at 15 ips (inches-per-second), 7 1/2 ips, 3 3/4 ips, oh please not 1 7/8ths ips? Is it heads out or tails out? Some random combination of all of the above? (It happens!) Then there's the musical content, the juicy stuff. When I don't know the song titles, I google lyrics. Which means, today, my search history looks like this:

he moans when i'm sleeping, wakes me 2am

i've got a man down by the sea

awful morning blues

hard time in monkey town

church on sunday and cabaret on monday

dreaming of you, that's all i do

don't you rock me daddy-o

there's many a girl can go about

which way does the red river run

by 4 o'clock in the morning you know it's a lonesome town

don't play police when you knock on my door

Have fun analyzing that, Google!

Leap Day seems like a good day to catch up on fun stuff like invoicing, accounting, responding to emails, backing up hard drives. What fun! Okay, how about highlighting some new releases?

Stupendously proud to have mastered Michael Daves‘ double album Orchids and Violence (Nonesuch). The first disc is a traditional take on mostly bluegrass standards, recorded live to tape in Old First Reformed Church (a block away from my former Brooklyn home!) and featuring heavy hitters Mike Bub on bass, Brittany Haas on violin, Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and Punch Brothers banjoist Noam Pikelny. The second disc takes those same songs and twists them through a raw and experimental lens with Daves on electric guitar, mandolin, keyboards and drums and Jessi Carter on electric bass. Both discs were mixed by Vance Powell at Sputnik Sound and mastered by me. If I were still in NYC, I would not miss the trio of release shows at The Rockwood, The Knitting Factory and The Bell House. (Seriously, I considered flying across the country to go to these shows).

Also newly released – this gorgeous project by Brad Loving aka You are Lightning, You Are Lovely; Elisa Peimer’s Inside The Glass, Original Salvation by 19 (+/-) piece New Orleans Orchestra / cabaret group Vaud & the Villains. (Those last two records were mixed by the marvelous Ted Young!)

Manufactured Recordings just put out this record of sexy soul-flavored jams, the California Playboys’ Trying To Become A Millionaire, which I restored and remastered from original vinyl and which was originally released on San Francisco’s Loadstone Records in 1976.

From the Awesome Tapes label, check out DJ Katapila’sTrotro, an intensely danceable mix from the Ghanian DJ known for his epic sets. This one got a nice write-up in the NY Times.

Happy Leap Day!