Light Up Gold has been re-issued on What’s Your Rupture (home of Royal Headache and Iceage), and Parquet Courts have officially blown the fuck up.  I couldn’t be more thrilled – not only did the record turn out better than any of us had imagined, but all four of these guys are amazing people.  The album currently has an 87% rating on Metacritic, including a 5/5 review by the Guardian, a 9/10 in NME, and a host of other glowing reviews. Pitchfork threw their muscle behind the band with a super-positive review and a Rising feature.   Light Up Gold and the first single “Borrowed Time” made their way onto a number of Pitchfork’s year-end staff lists, and eMusic voted the band #1 Band to Watch in 2013 and and the album the #15th Best Album of 2012.

Most humbling of all, the band named ME one of the best things in 2012 in Pitchfork’s year-end Guest List…. I’m blushing now as I type this….   I can’t wait to see what else is in store for these guys this year – we were already thrilled with the work we had done and looking forward to the next one, but now more so than ever.  Hold onto yr butts.

Sweet Talk‘s new album Pickup Lines is out now on Gerald Cosloy’s (of Matador Records and Homestead Records fame) label 12XU.  I was introduced to these guys through the Parquet Courts and Wiccans albums, and mixed the record this past fall.  Think “the best parts of Cheap Trick, early UK power pop and the dual guitar work of Thin Lizzy.”  There’s a video for the song “Last Dance” above, and you can stream the title track over at the label’s Soundcloud page.

I’ve been doing a lot of sound design work recently, working on a feature and a couple shorts, including The Apocalypse by Andrew Zuchero, which just debuted at Sundance Film Festival.  Sundance has shared the short (along with a handful of others) in its entirety, which you can stream above!  It’s been really fun digging into these projects, and while some of the info on the others is still hush-hush, we’re really hoping to be screening and premiering them at festivals soon… I’ll keep you posted!

One of the sound design projects I worked on last year, Reggie Watts‘ A Live in Central Park (for Comedy Central), made it onto Vulture’s Top 10 Stand-Up Specials.  It was a really fun project to work on – the director Duncan Skiles did an amazing job blending all these different elements together – and I hope more people get a chance to see it!

And one of my favorite records that I worked on last year, Wiccans’ Field II, got some year-end nods as well.  It was Magnet’s #5 Punk/Hardcore Record of 2012 and A.V. Club’s #7 Loud Record of 2012, as well as making Parquet Courts’ Pitchfork Guest-List.  If you haven’t heard this bad boy yet, check it out.

2013 is already shaping up to be an amazing year!  I’ve got a number of exciting projects coming up over the next couple months, and a number of projects I did in 2012 should be coming out soon… I’m seriously excited.  If you wanna get in touch, please just write me at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com – thanks, as always, for reading this!