Category: Blog

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Sunbathing Animal Artwork

I’ve been slow to update recently, but in case you hadn’t noticed:  Sunbathing Animal, the new full length by Parquet Courts, is out now!

The New York Times wrote a large feature about the group leading up to the release (in which I am briefly quoted!), as did the Washington Post, Pitchfork, Grantland, and Stereogum.  Reviews have been across-the-board positive, from Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’ nod, to Spin deeming it ‘Essential’, to Stereogum naming it Album of the Week.

I got a copy of the LP a couple weeks ago and listened through it again for the first time in a while.  I don’t know how to write about it without sounding like a proud papa, but maybe that’s just what I am.  The artwork is stunning (Andrew kinda blew me away this time), and sitting there poring over the packaging while the music played from my stereo, I was able to forget that I had anything to do with making it and just enjoy it.  It’s a cool record – catchy and gnarly and tough and fun – the kind of record that made me want to make records in the first place.  We worked really hard to see this vision through, and I couldn’t be happier with the results or the reception it has had.  Their homecoming show last week at Sugar Hill Supper Club (with our pals Protomartyr and Future Punx) was icing on the cake… just that much sweeter.

 

My copy of the LP also came with a 7″, featuring an alternate version of ‘Black and White’ and another Sean song “Tic in My Brain’.  We couldn’t figure out which version of ‘Black and White’ we liked better, so they just put them both out.  Austin and Johann Rashid made a pretty stellar video for this second version of ‘Black and White’.

 

Impose Magazine recently posted a mix Bob and I made as Eaters.  We worked out the song selection together, with “each artist embodies a spirit of exploration in their work and blurs the line between outlier and trailblazer.”  But Bob’s the real brain behind this mix, and it sounds fantastic… a proper journey.  We’ve been working on some new material, and have some shows coming up this summer, including this one at Glasslands on July 11th.

I’ve been busy with a lot of other great projects (including a new Future Punx EP), but wanted to get this out there before too long…. talk at ya again soon.

 

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Eaters Live @ Moogfest

So, many things…. first of all, thanks to everyone who came out to or helped put together any of the Eaters shows.  The tour was great – nothing like driving around the midwest with one of your best friends, playing music you’re excited about, meeting new people, and hearing a bunch of interesting sounds along the way.  The album’s out now on Driftless Recordings/Dull Tools.

Sunbathing Ani-Mania continues!  Parquet Courts recently debuted their new Stooge-y single ‘Black and White’  on Late Night with Seth Meyers [spoiler alert: Fred Armisen jumps onstage for the feedback solo, but Austin upstages him anyway] and released the album version the next day (stream it up above).  Slow-burner ballad ‘Instant Disassembly’ surfaced last week, and immediately grabbed a Best New Track nod from Pitchfork (stream that down below).  Sunbathing Animal is out June 3rd on What’s Your Rupture/Rough Trade.

I’ve been working with artist/director Thu Tran on a series of games for the new Tinkham Veale student center at Case Western Reserve University (where I went to school and met Thu… trippy).  The six Cleveland-inspired games are displayed on a 30′ LED screen in the middle of the main atrium, and are played through a motion-controlled Kinect sensor… so basically you’re just jumping around or punching the air in front of this giant video wall.  Since the installation is designed to run continuously in a public space, Thu and I decided to treat the sound design as a sort of generative ambient music…. something that registers to a participant as reacting to them, and that can also blend pleasantly into the background for everyone else in the space.  I’ve always enjoyed working with Thu (like on her shows Food Party and The Misguided Guide to the Origin of Everything), and it was a pleasure to collaborate with Ivan Safrin (who’s designed such bonkers games as Space Cruiser, a flight simulator at the Hayden Planetarium, and Sidescroller, where players run around a room with 20 monitors from screen to screen) and Bobo Do (whose work you may have seen projected behind Beyonce once or twice).  There’s an inherent goofiness and giddiness in the games, but there’s also a depth and beauty in everyone’s work that truly amazes me… I can’t wait to play them in the space when the building opens this fall.

Veale Center

I’ve been doing some mastering lately too.  I finished mixing and mastered the new PC Worship record Rust – this thing is unbelievable… just wait.   Jungle Green brought me a couple more damaged crooner tunes for a new single coming out on Kingfisher Bluez, following the Twelve-and-a-half Minutes of the Most Beautiful Love Songs Ever Written EP we worked on last year.  I also worked on an EP for Bordeaux, an off-kilter synth-pop duo mixed by my studio partner Jake Aron at Doctor Wu’s.  I recently mastered a new EP for gloomy doomers Vibrant Light as well.  And I just mastered Girl Talk and Freeway’s ‘Suicide Remix’, featuring A$AP Ferg – a new version of their Add (N) to X-sampling tune off Broken Ankles.

I’m in the middle of a few new projects, but please write me at jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com if you’d like to talk about sound.  Thank  yeur!!

 

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EATERS - front cover ref

Eaters, the labor of love shared between Bob Jones and myself, is finally out in real life.  It’s available digitally through Driftless Recordings (https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/eaters/id859836126), on vinyl through Dull Tools (http://dulltools.bigcartel.com/product/eaters-s-t-lp-preorder-april-22nd), and to stream on Ad Hoc.

I’m nearly overwhelmed with excitement about this album coming out.  Bob and I spent nearly two years working on this, writing and stripping it down and building it back up, looking at it from every angle, until we arrived at this conclusion.  I am both proud and humbled by the work we put into this thing, and I can only hope people will enjoy it as much as we do.

My good friend Chris Hefner created a video for the first single ‘Far’, which was his end of a four-year-old barter that I finally cashed in on (if you want to see/hear my end, check out his first feature The Pink Hotel).  This video is incredible – Bob’s and my jaws dropped when we first saw it.  Interview Magazine debuted the video, along with an interview with Bob and me about process and creation.  Impose Magazine picked up on the second single ‘Bury the Lines’, saying “somewhere in the siren of synths, the life cables and chords of yesterday and tomorrow are cut and trumped to a tune that reminds us all to live for today,” which I really liked.   And The New Yorker hyped our record release show at Glasslands, dishing out some extra attention to my engineering work while they were at it.

We’re taking off on tour later this week, starting with the show at Glasslands April 17th and hitting the Driftless showcase at Moogfest.  Check out these dates, come out if you can, and bring your friends!

Thur 4/17: Brooklyn, NY @ Glasslands Gallery (w/ Yvette, Dan Friel)
https://www.facebook.com/events/246054458905903/

Fri 4/18: Philly, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie (w/ Void Vision, Hiro Kone, Jeff Zeigler) LATE SHOW
https://www.facebook.com/events/229565430566944/

Sat 4/19: Cleveland, OH @ The Happy Dog (w/ Man Forever)

Sun 4/20: Detroit, MI @ PJ’s Lager House (w/ Especially Good, Turn to Crime) https://www.facebook.com/events/681531381889483/

Mon 4/21: Chicago, IL @ Township (w/ Golden Birthday, THIN HYMNS, ADT)
https://www.facebook.com/events/661557683907029/

Tues 4/22: Columbus, OH @ Cafe Bourbon St./ the Summit (w/ George Brazil, Matt Horseshit)

Wed 4/23 : Nashville, TN @ Betty’s Bar (w/ Ttotals, Dirty Dreams)
https://www.facebook.com/events/238586033014449

Thu 4/24: Asheville, NC @ Moogfest (Driftless Recordings Showcase)

Mon 4/28: Baltimore, MD The Crown (w/ Jenny Graf, Shana Palmer, and Alexander Trust)

 

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Sunbathing Animal Artwork

The new Parquet Courts record Sunbathing Animal  was officially announced this week, and with it a stream of the titular track and a Best New Track nod from Pitchfork!  Of all the songs on the record, this is the one that still elicits the strongest reaction – it really does something for me.  Tracking this song is probably the most intense recording experience I’ve ever had – there’s almost nothing in the instrumental to cue where you are in the song and it’s practically un-punch-in-able – and I think that feeling of riding the rails and struggling to finish the sprint is truly captured here.  I like to think of it as the sonic equivalent of a beast of hair, teeth and claws bearing down on you as you for dear life.

Over the weekend, I listened to the acetate of Sunbathing Animal back to back with the test pressing of the Eaters LP with my other Eater Bob Jones and Andrew Savage from Parquet Courts (who’s co-releasing Eaters on his label Dull Tools).  Both of these records mean so much to me (emotionally, creatively, professionally), from the experiences of making them (with people I consider to be both inspiring collaborators and close friends), to the finished albums (and the feeling that I wouldn’t change a single thing about either one).  I can’t wait for people to hear what I’ve been doing with the last year of my life.

 

Another labor of love that just hit the internet is the first song from my good friend Gregg Gillis’ new Girl Talk EP with Freeway, Broken Ankles.  I’ve been working with him off-and-on throughout this project, and it’s so exciting to see this drop.  The first single “Tolerated” has a verse from Waka Flocka Flame, and an Enon sample to boot!  Plus, the video is completely ridiculous and amazing.  The full EP comes out April 8th on Dat Piff.

 

And I just got my own copy of the Fa Bonx 7″!  They exist!  There are all kinds of back stories and rumors about the provenance of these recordings… something about a forgotten glam band and rescued tapes… all I know is that Kevin from What’s Your Rupture brought me these tape transfers to work with, and it was a blast doing it.  Check out The Rinda below.

 

I’m so psyched to be mixing the new PC Worship record right now!  They were the first band I fell for after moving to New York, and I’ve scrambled to keep up with their releases since.  This new record, recorded and mangled by primary Worshiper Justin Frye at Roulette, is a massive slab of mutant rock n’ roll that pushes the boundaries of their sound in some stunningly mind-numbing ways.  Look for it this fall…. you should be psyched too.

I just finished working on a record by Dream Police, a new project from Mark Perro and Nick Chiericozzi of The Men.  It’s a trip of a record, heavy on drum machines and wild solos, with a lot of stylistic ground covered – from industrial biker vibes to acoustic psychedelia to cinematic synth-pop and everywhere in between.  I co-mixed it with Kyle Keays-Hagerman and the band at Doctor Wu’s, and Kyle tracked it at his space Spice World on his own Otari MX-5050.  I’m not sure when or where this will be coming out, but it’ll be a real treat when it does.

Lots of cool stuff coming up this month!  It’s too much and too soon to get into everything, but I promise it will be amazing!  Thanks for reading, and please hit me up if you’d like to talk about sound: jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

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Eaters Press Photo - FINAL

The Fader recently premiered the first single from Eaters, my new project with my buddy Bob Jones.  The song’s called “Far”, and my good friend and associate Chris Hefner (director of The Poisoner and The Pink Hotel) just completed a mind-blowing video for the track, which should hit soon.  The (self-titled) album comes out April 15th through Driftless Recordings and Dull Tools, and I can’t wait for people to hear it.  If you can’t wait either, come check us out this Friday (March 7th) at Death By Audio with Future Punx for their 7″ release show (which incidentally I mixed and mastered).

We just wrapped up the new Parquet Courts record last week, and it’s every bit as satisfying and exciting as you might imagine.  We worked on this puppy for about 10 months, across three recording sessions in two different studios (Seaside Lounge and Outlier Inn), with two different mix sessions plus a final stems tweak at Doctor Wu’s.  It was a serious undertaking, but listening through the record with the band last week was so incredibly rewarding – it was seriously everything we wanted it to be…. and the (multitude of) outtakes are badass too!!   The record’s being mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound as I write this, and will be released this summer by What’s Your Rupture/Rough Trade.

PC - SBA sheet music

But you won’t need to wait that long to hear what we’ve been working on!  As Spin just announced, the band is dropping the first song from the LP on Record Store Day, aka April 19th.  The single consists of “Sunbathing Animal” (the LP’s titular track), and non-album b-side “Pilgrims to Nowhere”, both of which have worked their way into the band’s live sets over the past year.  Check out the sheet music/cover art above, or download it here if you wanna give it a whirl.

Jonny digging

I also spent a couple weeks working with the lovely London lads Mazes recently, producing/recording/mixing their new LP for Fat Cat Records.  We went upstate to Adam Pierce (aka Mice Parade’s) studio Tree Time for the tracking (which is where I also recorded Screens by Forest Fire for Fat Cat).  It was a real bonding experience, between a theft, getting snowed in multiple times (see above), and the awesome record we made together.  Jack from the band came back to Brooklyn with me, we ate chilaquiles and pizza, and mixed the record at Doctor Wu’s.  It’s a really cool record, and I’m excited for people to hear it later this year.

I have many projects that I am very excited about coming up soon, so please check back if you’re interested.  Please contact me if you’d like to talk about sound (jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com), and thanks for reading!

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Parquet Courts at Outlier Inn

The new Parquet Courts LP is nearly done!!  I spent a week upstate with the guys and my Otari MX-5050 earlier this month, recording at the wonderful Outlier Inn. Massive thanks to our gracious hosts Josh and Ambika – they made our stay there so comfortable and productive, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  We then went to Doctor Wu’s to mix those sessions along with tracks from our previous sessions at Seaside Lounge.  Everything is sounding wild – it’s a real step up sonically from Tally All the Things That You Broke, even though it’s still on the same 8-track tape machine.  We’re still working on a final track order, but it’s a total trip of a record!

For Austin’s birthday, they played Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which still kinda blows my mind.  And on Friday, I’m flying to meet them in New Zealand for a tour with Laneway Festival and Total Control.  HUZZAH!!

In the meantime, I sound designed and mixed a couple shorts for Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate (while they were at Sundance Film Festival for the showing of Catherine).  They’re really great shorts called Childs’ Playhouse, which were written by and starring small children.  Plus, they’re for Disney, so I can scratch “make something for Disney” off my bucket list!

Last fall, I mixed a film with my friend and film maker Duncan Skiles (director of Why Shit So Crazy by Reggie Watts and The Fuzz) called Last of the Great Romantics.  I’m particularly fond of this charming and funny little rom-com!  There’s a new trailer online, with screenings coming later this year.

I also mastered a couple projects over the last week: an album by Fennec called Let Your Heart Break (out February 11th), and an EP called Reach House by the Brooklyn band Railings.

EATERS - front cover ref

Maybe the thing I’m most psyched about though is unveiling Eaters to the world.  My friend Bob Jones and I started working on this project nearly two years ago, and I couldn’t be happier with how things have developed.  We’re playing our first show tonight (at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn), the first single drops in a couple weeks, and the album comes out in April on Driftless Recordings…

Thanks for reading!  I’ll be in and out of the Internet for the next few weeks, but as always, feel free to send me a note if you’d like to talk about sound – jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

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HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!! I’m so thrilled to be starting 2014!  2013 was great and all, but there is so much to look forward to over the next few months, I don’t know where to begin…

Catherine

… maybe with Catherine playing at Sundance this year?  I mixed and designed the sound for this short film version of the series by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp (who also made Marcel the Shell).  I’m working on some new shorts with them now, which are just as mind-numbingly weird and funny.

The Poisoner @ Lincoln Hall

… or maybe with the preview screening of The Poisoner on January 10th at Lincoln Hall?  It’s the strange and beautiful second feature film by my friend Chris Hefner, which we mixed last month at my studio in Brooklyn – check out the official trailer.  Daniel Knox provided an alluring score, and will be performing live at the screenings.  I highly recommend all Chicagoans reading this to buy tickets for this screening.


… I know!  Maybe with the release of the remix of “Sorrow” I made for Frankie Rose! I mixed it at Doctor Wu’s, based on a string arrangement by Grayson Sanders of Snowmine, with my studio partner Yale Yng-Wong executing a beautiful Moog bass part before taking a nap.

… but I should probably first just take a few moments to reflect on how great 2013 was.  Sure, it had its difficult bits, but I had opportunity after opportunity to make and do good work with good people.  I spent a month in India; travelled around the states with friends, family, and colleagues; made an album with my boy Bob Jones (EATERS 2014 BABY!); made lots of new friends; and did some of the best work of my life.  I can only hope that things will continue that way in 2014.

Light Up Gold Cover

… and I have to spend a minute marveling at the success of Parquet Courts and Light Up Gold.  These guys have become really close friends of mine over the last couple years since we banged this out in their practice space, and I couldn’t be happier about everything coming their way.  Their music made countless year-end lists – from Pitchfork (Light Up Gold, “Stoned and Starving”, and the cover art) and Rolling Stone (Light Up Gold, “Stoned and Starving”, and writer/VH1-talking-head Rob Sheffield’s personal list), to NPR (Sound Opinions’ numbers 1 and 2 top album) and Associated Press, to Other Music and Amoeba Music – pretty much everyone loved it.  And who could forget Tally All the Things That You Broke?  Its release sealed the deal, as far as I’m concerned.  We’re going upstate tomorrow to finish recording the new record at Outlier Inn – fingers crossed that people will love it too.

I hope everyone has something to look forward to in the coming months!  Thanks for reading, and please write if you’d like to talk about sound – jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

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Heavy Metal ChristmasHo Ho Ho Everybody!  The holidaze are upon us, and Cole Haan put together this heavy rendition of Jingle Bells by Unlocking the Truth to celebrate!  I recorded the band at Seaside Lounge and mixed it at home… gotta love that double kick.  Shout out to director Ben Hughes for all the Coil albums he gave me.

I’ve been doing a bit of mastering over the last few weeks.  I mixed and mastered an epic collaborative “transnational blues” jam with Alex from Dirty Beaches and Josh and Simon from Hot & Cold.  I blended a field recorded and iphone recording, which turned out really cool, and mastered it at my home studio.

Tyvek - Blunt Instrumental 2

I transferred and remastered the out-of-print Blunt Instrumental 2 tape by Tyvek for re-release on Dull Tools.  Wild shit!  She Speaks in Tongues from Chicago also had me master their record recently, which should see release in early 2014.

Light Up Gold Cover

As the year wraps up, out come the year-end lists.  I’m beyond thrilled to see my boys Parquet Courts up there already… Light Up Gold has so far made it onto lists by Rolling Stone (#11) and Paste Magazine (#23), and the cover made it to Pitchfork’s best album art (#15).  I’m psyched to see what else is in store for the record, and can barely wait to head up to Outlier Inn in the new year to finish the next record!

I’m wrapping the year with a couple film projects (with my good friend from Chicago Chris Hefner, and loveable weirdos Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate of Catherine and Marcel the Shell renown/infamy), and continuing to prep for Eaters to come out next year.  Thanks for checking things out… holler at me if you wanna talk sound: jonathan[dot]schenke [at] gmail[dot]com

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Tally All the Things That You Broke

Parquet Courts‘ newest release, Tally All the Things That You Broke, came out last month to good-to-glowing reviews.  Two of my favorite pieces I’ve read were in the New York Times and Rolling Stone, where the authors gushed like unadulterated fanboys.  Hell, even my mom’s calling me to tell me she heard them on NPR (“Yeah ma, I know, I mixed that show.”)  I love it!

We’re in the middle of a new record as I write, while the band take a much-deserved break.  I truly cannot wait to continue work on it, and just as excited for everyone to hear it.


In the meantime, I had the chance to remix the JASH Network series Catherine into a short film.  I was a big fan of the original, and this is just as sweet and bizarre in its own special way.  It’s debuting this weekend at the AFI Festival in LA, and will hopefully be making the rounds on the festival circuit next year.

But the biggest recent development in my world was finishing the Eaters album with my friend Bob Jones.  We’d worked on these recordings off-and-on for a while now, and were approached by Joel Ford and Patrick McDermott about releasing material on their new label Driftless Recordings.  We took our recent material from this summer and reworked some older material to craft an album that I  honestly feel is compositionally and sonically unique in the current musical landscape.  It’s the first music of my own that I’ve made in years, and I couldn’t be happier with or more proud of the result.  The self-titled album will be out in the spring, with singles and videos streaming in the new year…

I’ve got a number of projects small and large coming up over the next month, and hopefully much more to share soon.  If you’d like to talk about sound, please write at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

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So I just wrapped up two weeks straight in the studio with Parquet Courts on their new new album.  It’s madness.  I’ve never worked so hard or gotten in so deep as I did on this one – we really pushed ourselves this time.  They’re back on the road now (at Austin City Limits, then on a European tour with Mazes, who I’ll be working with on their new album next year), and we’ll finish this beast next month.

Their current new EP, Tally All the Things That You Broke is out now! Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NME, and just about everyone else is praising the EP, and the band packed Music Hall of Williamsburg for their record release show.  Now you can check out this video for “You’ve Got Me Wonderin’ Now” by my buddy Thu Tran.  I’m really excited that this EP is out now – we had a blast working on it, and it’s a great step forward… just wait until you hear the new one.


My friends and associates Forest Fire also got a nice write-up from Pitchfork and played their record release show for their fantastic album Screens.  They also have a new video for the release; bassist Galen Bremer made a creepy psyched-out collage for “Cold Kind”.


Another band I worked with recently also just celebrated their record release: the ever- ferocious Mannequin Pussy!  You can stream their kick-in-the-nuts of an album Gypsy Pervert and check out their tour dates at their bandcamp page. Go see ’em!


And chances are, you may have seen them around town – they played both the Parquet Courts and Mannequin Pussy record release shows – but have you heard the twitchy dance punk of Future Punx on record??  You can now!  Check it out!!


 

In the meantime, I’m working on this.

Thanks for stopping by – please feel free to hit me up at jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com if you wanna talk sound!