News: My flight to LA for GRAMMY week leaves in a few hours, just enough time for me to ruin my brand new manicure (“charcoal dust”) before the big events. Studio build update: we bought windows! My studio will have windows! Demo starts next month, hopefully, after the rains. Mastering update: some phenomenal projects announced that I had the honor & pleasure to work on, including a reissue of jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo’s 1969 (Ebalunga!), two new singles - “Fudge” and “Heels Over Head” - by Occurrence, in advance of a forthcoming firestorm of an album, an album of wild percussion and piano by Ira Kamin and PC Muñoz, aka St. Anne’s Band, and a project that brought out an enormous range of emotions for me, Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants - Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995, which documents a collective of underground performers, artists and drag queens so fully and with such grace and respect; it’s remarkable and worth the deep dive.

It’s November and, yes, I am still waiting for the official city stamp of approval before I can begin construction on my home studio. It’s a slog. We’re in permits purgatory. But, hey, we are required to select and plant a tree in front of our house, and the fees are covered by a grant. So that’s a win! Recently, I had a great chat with Xylo Aria about my favorite topics - audio restoration, college radio, dogs - for her podcast Music Production for Women. I was also featured in Shoutout LA, shouting out my mentors and some favorite places to eat and drink. A few mastering projects to highlight: Dimber released Always Up 2 U , a deeply personal and poignant collection of absolute bangers. Reminder Records announced the upcoming reissue of The Boyfriends’ Wrapped Up In A Dream. Restoring and remastering this made me fall in love with guitars over and over again. I’ve been working on new music by dark wave artist AS Valentino, but since it’s Halloween season, here’s a link to one from last year: Werewolf… enjoy!

It’s June 21st, the summer solstice. It’s so uncharacteristically hot in the Bay Area that I have shut down all my gear and am sequestered in my shady living room with an iced coffee.

My current studio lacks proper HVAC and gets unbearably hot on these rare scorchers. But that is all about to change! Permits are on the horizon, which means I’ll break ground on building my mastering studio by the end of the summer. The construction industry is notoriously complicated and costly around here, and it’s taken me nearly two years to get to this point. I am absolutely dreading the process of tearing down, packing up, and moving my studio to my temporary digs (which I’m thrilled to share with vinyl cutting engineer Anne Marie Suenram and film and audio preservationist Peter Conheim), only to have to do it in reverse in less than a year. But, when it’s done, it’s going to be beautiful, it’s going to sound amazing, it’s going to have proper HVAC, and it’s going to be mine all mine. I will do my best to document the process on my Instagram.

I love my job. Love it! And one of my favorite things about being a mastering and restoration engineer is the sheer breadth of recordings and sounds and media types that come through my studio. In addition to digitizing open reel tapes and cassettes for the Arhoolie Foundation, for the 924 Gilman archives, and for radio producers the Kitchen Sisters, I’ve gotten to master so much amazing music lately. A few choice projects:

Lalin St. Juste’s Vertulie is a haunting sonic exploration of identity and memory, recorded and mixed at Women’s Audio Mission and mastered by me.

Lollise’s Unborn bridges Afro-Futurism and synth-pop and will for sure get you on your feet. Mixed by Morgan Greenstreet and mastered by me. I highly recommend you all watch her video for The Booty.

French double bassist and composer Florent Ghys released two albums of post-minimalist electro-chamber music (I really don’t know how else to describe it!) - Ritournelle and Mosaïques. Check out this gorgeous video for Lisboa.

The handsome and talented Davey Harris released a video for So Predictable and dropped a catchy single - Penguin Dance - in support of penguin conservation efforts. That song should really be a TikTok viral dance sensation.

Brooklyn-based indie pop singer songwriter Dru Cutler’s luscious single Vibrate also got the video treatment.

Nothing gives me greater joy than developing a long and fruitful working relationship with musicians. I first mastered Mylo Choy Sutton’s music back in 2017, and it was a total pleasure to work on their new music Summer Project (Part 1), which was released in June. This one was produced and recorded by Mylo and another longtime friend and colleague, Matt Werden, who also mixed it.

I have to wrap this up and get ready for a board meeting. After serving as President of the San Francisco Chapter of the Recording Academy for the past two years, I’m gratefully taking a step back and will continue to serve in the role of Governor. Lots of work to be done! Happy Summer, y’all!