Category: Blog

on

by

Tally All the Things That You Broke

 

Tally All the Things that You Broke, the new Parquet Courts EP, is streaming now at parkayquarts.com – check it out!  It’s really good.

I’ll write more next week when it physically drops, but I have to get back to the studio to finish mixing the new LP.  It’s even better.

If yr free tonight in NYC, swing by Music Hall of Williamsburg to catch their release show.  Tickets are still available, but going fast.  I’ll be running the boards for them if you wanna say hi!

on

by

SCREENS Cover

Screens, the new album by Forest Fire, is out now on Fat Cat Records.  I love this record.  Even though I worked really intensely with the band for two months last fall – co-producing, engineering, and mixing the record – I’ve played it over and over leading up to the release, and it still feels new.  I’m seriously proud of this record, and am thrilled that it’s out for everyone to hear.

There’s been some really enthusiastic press for it so far: Bowlegs Music reviewed the album, saying “Both timeless and modern, Screens is a moving record that inspires critical thought and reflection,” and did a hilarious and informative interview with Mark.  7 Bit Arcade and Northern Transmissions both rave about it.  And The 405 writes “After promising so much with their initial releases, Forest Fire have delivered an album that is frequently beautiful, raw and poignant in equal measure. Let it deservedly rocket to the top of your end-year list and, believe me when I say, you’re about to have a new favourite band.”

I was particularly excited when I found out that famed electronic producer Andrew Weatherall debuted “Annie”, maybe my favorite song from the record, on his podcast.  It’s an 11-minute Sister Ray-style psychedelic synth trip, and totally kills.  You can download and stream the whole set – skip to 24:35 to check it out!

The Fuzz's Herbie

The other project-that-I-worked-on-a-while-ago-and-am-psyched-on-people-getting-to-experience debuting this week is The Fuzz!!  It’s a buddy-comedy/crime-drama web series the New York Times calls “clever and oddly exciting.”  My friend Duncan Skiles directed it, and stayed up for almost three days straight at the end of post-production to make it as excellent as it could be (I know this because he was sitting on my couch for a lot of that time!).  Check it out!

I just wrapped up the new single by my buddies Future Punx, which is essentially the last touring incarnation of Fergus & Geronimo minus Andrew, and picks up the agitated interplanetary dance punk of Funky Was the State of Affairs and runs with it.  They recorded it themselves on their Tascam 388, I transferred it to my computer and did overdubs, and mixed and mastered it at my home studio.  I’m suuuuuper psyched on how the songs turned out!  Expect the 7″ soon on Dull Tools.

Herein Wild Cover

I recently completed a remix for my friend Frankie Rose of the song “Sorrow” from her upcoming record Herein Wild.  It’s based around an alternate string arrangement by Grayson Sanders (Snowmine), and was mixed at Doctor Wu’s, with assistance from my boy Yale Yng-Wong (who also recorded the strings).  I don’t know how it’s being released, but I can’t wait for people to hear it!!

Also, I just mixed this “Born in 1928” ad campaign for Cole Haan.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the files and heard Maya Angelou sing!

Thanks for checking out the site!  Please get in touch if you wanna talk sound: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com

on

by

Tally All the Things That You BrokeI am sooooooo psyched that the new Parquet Courts EP Tally All the Things That You Broke is coming out soon!  October 8th, What’s Your Rupture.  Pitchfork broke the news and debuted the new single “You’ve Got Me Wonderin’ Now” recently.  I can’t wait for people to hear this EP, the sessions were incredible and the recordings turned out so well.  But even more so, I can’t wait to get back into the studio next month to finish the LP!  You guys are gonna flip.

Forest Fire continues to get some well-deserved attention around their upcoming record Screens.  Pitchfork praised the first single “Waiting in the Night” recently, even comparing the sound to Dave Fridmann, thank you very much.  Meanwhile, Stereogum debuted another song, “Alone with the Wires”.  Mark did a pretty cool interview with Ghettoblaster recently, which gave a good insight into the mindset and process of the record.  I really do love this record, and I am so excited for everyone to hear it – I think we made something truly special with this one.  Screens is out September 10th on Fat Cat.

Also coming out around then is The Fuzz!  The series airs September 9th on Yahoo Screen.  It’s about a buddy-comedy/crime-drama about a puppet’s rise through the criminal underworld, selling cocaine to humans and jellybeans to puppets, and the reject human/puppet cop partners who are working to bring him down.  We busted ass over to get this done, and I am thrilled it’s airing soon!  The director Duncan Skiles and I are working on his new film Last of the Great Romantics now… it’s so good.

I recently finished working with Mannequin Pussy, mixing and mastering their new album Gypsy Pervert.  They recorded it at Oscilloscope Studio (the Beastie Boys’ studio!), so it sounded great coming to me, and I threw it through my new Universal Audio 1176s and Studer plugins to get it sounding that much bigger.  We’re all really excited about it – they’ll have cassettes on their tour this October.

I also recently worked with Christine Hoberg, mixing her upcoming record at Doctor Wu’s.  It was fun to get into a real David Lynch-y sonic headspace with these songs.. lots of weird delays and pitch shifting around “singer-songwriter” ballads.  Pretty cool stuff!

Jungle Green recently released an EP called Twelve-and-a-half Minitues of the Most Beautiful Love Songs Ever Written as a free download on his bandcamp page.  It’s a pretty wild ride through love and heartbreak, with some totally skronky outbursts and some tender falsetto.  It was mixed by Paul  de Jong (of the Books) and I mastered it with him at Doctor Wu’s.

Oh!  And I almost forgot – Bob and I finished the new Eaters EP.  It’s called Phantom Selves.  More on that later.

Thank you thank you thank you for taking time to read this, hope you dug some of it.  Feel free to get in touch to talk about sound: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com

on

by

SCREENS Cover

The new Forest Fire record Screens is coming out September 10th on Fat Cat and is available now to pre-order. I recorded, mixed and co-produced the record with the band last fall, at Tree Time (Fat Cat’s studio upstate), Doctor Wu’s, and my home studio.  It was honestly one of my favorite record-making experiences of my career, and is some of the best sounding work I’ve ever done… no joke.  The first song “Waiting in the Night” and a brief interview is on MTV Hive for you to enjoy.

“She (Was My Baby)”, the second single from the Keepsies, is out now.  The Keepsies are Vince McClelland, Austin Brown (from Parquet Courts), and Jason Kelly (from Fergus & Geronimo).  I recorded some overdubs and mixed these songs last year, so I’m super excited that they’ve hit the web for everyone to enjoy!  Hopefully the third one will come out a bit faster…..


And the entire series of Catherine is now online!  The series was created by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleicher-Camp for the JASH Network (Sarah Silverman, Tim and Eric, Michael Cera, and Reggie Watts’ Youtube channel).  If you haven’t yet ventured down this mind-numbing wormhole of a show, here’s your perfect chance!

I just got back from Chicago, where I mixed the Blue stage at Pitchfork Music Festival.  It’s always nice going back and working with my friends and associates from when I lived out there, and it was extra special to have so many friends playing on my stage… Frankie Rose and her band, Parquet Courts, Chairlift… all slayed.  I rode back in the van with Parquet Courts, which was great to catch up with the gang, and got us all excited to get back into the studio in September to finish the album!

If you wanna talk sound, please write at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com.  Thanks for checking out my site!

on

by
3

Otari MX-5050 vs Tascam 388

A couple months ago, I was at Seaside Lounge with Parquet Courts recording a bunch of new material.  We finished an EP, which will be coming out this September – you can hear live versions of some of the songs (and a thoughtful interview with the band) on a recent edition of NPR’s World Cafe, recorded a couple weeks before we hit the studio.

Part of the setup process was figuring out what tape machine to use for the sessions.  We recorded Light Up Gold on Austin’s Tascam 388, so we knew we could get something good on it.  There’s an almost cult-like following surrounding the 388, from the San Francisco psych-garage scene to the Black Keys and a host of other analog enthusiasts.   I’ve worked on it a number of times (with Austin’s other band The Keepsies and the folk-rock revivalists Wild Leaves) and really love the sound, but wanted to explore some other options.

Seaside Lounge – in addition to their beautiful Otari MTR-90II 2″ 16-track (on which we recorded Funky Was the State of Affairs) – also has an Otari MX-5050 1/2″ 8 track in their B room.  Nirvana’s Bleach, Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff, and a bunch of early Sub Pop records were recorded on an Otari MX-5050.  The guys at Daptone Records still swear by them.  I recently picked up a MX-5050 for Doctor Wu’s, and was eager to try it out with the band.

So I set up a shootout of the two machines!  Through the Sony MPX console, I was able to simultaneously bus each track to the Otari (at 15 ips, no DBX), the Tascam (w/ DBX on), and Pro Tools HD (as a control).  Since we were using 8-track tape machines, I submixed my drums (kick, snare, rack, floor, stereo overheads) to a stereo pair.  The bass and two guitars had one mic each, but I’ve bounced the guitars as a stereo pair for this demonstration.

The recordings are from an early take that we discarded, so there are no vocals or other overdubs on it – just the live tracks.  I adjusted the clips levels so that they would be roughly the same volume (the mix between -18 and -15 RMS).  No other processing or effects were applied to these tracks post-tape/computer.

These clips are from a song called “Descend” (which will be on the upcoming EP).  There’s a rough mix of all the tracks (with the same relative mix level for each transfer), and the drums, bass, and guitars by themselves.  In each clip, the order is Pro Tools > Otari MX-5050 >Tascam 388 > Tascam 388 (w/ DBX off during playback, a really cool trick that seemed worth documenting!).

Mix:

Drums:

Bass:

Guitars:

We went decided fairly quickly to go with the Otari.  The low end is robust and punchy with a nice natural dip in the low mids, and an accented-but-not-hyped high end.  The Tascam sounds are really cool too, though.  With DBX on for both recording and playback, it gives a sound that’s more compressed and mid-rangey than either the Otari or Pro Tools… it sounds tough.  The low-mids of bass guitar got a bit out of control on the 388 – if we had stuck with it, I would have adjusted the EQ on the amp or the console to clean it up a bit.  Almost as an afterthought, I also transfered the tracks from the 388 with DBX off.  Austin and I had done that with some of the Keepsies recordings, and it totally changes the sound (as you can tell) to something bright and sparkly.  It’s a bit extreme in this case – I was using a lot of condensers on these recordings… but try it on something like a guitar overdub with a SM57 or whatever dynamic you’ve got around, and you can get some amazing/unique results.

This shootout was done for our own purposes, so it’s not particularly scientific or exact.  I hope that these recordings are as interesting to you guys as they were to us!  Big thanks to Charles and Mike at Seaside Lounge for all of their enthusiastic help to set this up.  Thanks for checking this out, and feel free to get in touch at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.

on

by

The next three episodes of Catherine are now showing on the JASH Network (Sarah Silverman, Tim & Eric, Michael Cera, and Reggie Watts’ new Youtube collective).  It’s been so much fun to get so weird with these sounds, and the series just gets more bizarre and beautiful as it goes.  Jenny and Dean killed it with the show – get into it!

I’ve mastered a couple records for Chicago associates recently.  The Clams have a new EP full of oddball Kinks-inspired pop tunes coming out soon. And Maxel Toft just released the album 32 in his Presidents series.  It’s a folk record about FDR (our 32nd president), and is available for download with a Roosevelt dime as an individual keepsake.

I also mixed a short film called Dissocia by Kyle Waszkelewicz, which has a score by Wild Leaves.

I’m very excited about the addition of a UAD Satellite and a bunch of new plugins to my personal studio.  It’s been a huge boost to the quality of my mixing and mastering work – I ended up mastering the Parquet Courts EP myself with these, and loved it!

Also, I did another interview recently, this time with the Red Bull Music Academy‘s paper The Daily Note.  The interview is in a column called Work Flow, where musicians and technically minded people like myself are asked to elaborate on their creative process and the effect that gear and its limitations have on their work. You can download a pdf of the whole paper (which also has articles on Vogueing and Nile Rodgers) right here.

Thanks for stopping by!  Please get in touch if you’d like to talk more about sound: jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

on

by

Parquet Courts @ Seaside

Words cannot describe how much fun I had recording with Parquet Courts earlier this month.  Seriously, that much.  We holed up at the always-awesome Seaside Lounge in Park Slope for a week-and-a-half, and recorded as much as we could.  Check out our setup in that pic above, and there are some more photos from the sessions on the Parquet Courts website.

From a sonic perspective, I’m really thrilled with what we did.  It sounds like Light Up Gold, but way more!  We tracked to an Otari MX-5050 8 track, which is the same model that a lot of early Sub Pop records (like Bleach and Superfuzz Bigmuff) were made on, as well as a lot of the Daptone stuff.  It sounds awesome!!  To help guide our decision, we did a shootout in the studio between the MX-5050 and the Tascam 388 (which we did Light Up Gold on) – I’ll be posting the results here soon for all my fellow recording nerds.

After the recordings, I edited everything at my place and we went over to Doctor Wu’s to mix.  Look for an EP later this year – I can’t wait for people to hear these songs!

If you’ve read all this and still wanna read more about me working with Parquet Courts and about the recording process in general, then you’re in luck!!  The Deli interviewed me recently about just that!


Since then, I’ve been mixing and working on sound design for a new web series called Catherine.  It was made by Jenny Slate and my old Food Party cohort Dean Fleischer-Camp, who also brought us Marcel the Shell.  I’m still genuinely weirded out by it, but I can’t stop watching it!!  The first three episodes are up now on the JASH Network (Sarah Silverman, Michael Cera, Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Reggie Watts’ new Youtube collective).

I had someone ask recently, so I thought I’d write something about it – I link to as many projects as I can find on my pages, so there’s actually a ton of stuff to listen/watch laying around here!  Thanks again, as always, for checking out my site.  And if you’d like to talk sound directly, please email me at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

on

by

Recording Beverly

I spent a week in the studio this month with Beverly, the new band by Frankie Rose and Drew Citron (of Avan Lava and Frankie’s touring band).  We did a round of tracking at their practice space, a bunch of vocals and overdubs at Doctor Wu’s, and a few days of editing and mixing at my place.  The songs are really cool – punky and melodic, on a real Last Splash/Pacer tip, with killer vocal harmonies.  We’re taking some time off to work on other projects, but I’m really looking forward to getting back into it in a couple months… I think people are really going to love this!

I’ve been doing some mastering over the last few weeks too…. I mastered an album by the Chicago band Warmbloods (featuring members of Watchers and Low Skies).  It was particularly fun to work on since my old studio mate/mentor from Experimental Sound Studio Jacob Ross played on and recorded it…

I also worked on a reissue series of the 80s Australian band The Sunday Painters, remastering from transfers of the original reels.  Their three EPs and two LPs were self-released in the early 80s in very limited numbers (like 250-500 copies each), and have long been out of print.  The sound really runs the gamut across the releases, ostensibly a punk band but with songs ranging from almost twee pop to full-on noise and everything in between.  I think a good frame of reference would be some intersection between Big Black, Swell Maps, and Flying Nun records.  A lot of really good stuff here, I’m really looking forward for these to come out.

My good friend Chris Hefner is nearing completion of his new feature film The Poisoner.  To raise the last of the funds (for Daniel Knox‘s score and sound mix by yours truly, among other things), he’s holding a presale in the form of a Deluxe Investor Ticket – a  limited-edition, signed and numbered, screen printed ticket for a special screening of the film after its completion.  I’m a big fan of Chris as both an artist and a person, and am really looking forward to working with him on this over the summer.  Check out a teaser above.

Chris has also posted The Pink Hotel, his first feature (which I also mixed), in its entirety.  Get spooky!

But honestly, the thing I’m most excited about doing right now is going back into the studio with Parquet Courts!  We’ll be at Seaside Lounge for tracking (where Andrew and I did Fergus & Geronimo’s Funky was the State of Affairs), and Doctor Wu’s for mixing.. two of my favorite studios in NYC.  They’ve got a bunch of new stuff ready to lay down to tape, and we’re all eager to get in there to see what happens. They’re also playing some sick shows coming up, opening for the Roots at BAM(!) and the Breeders(!!).  If you still can’t get enough, here’s some videos from Vice/Noisey and MTV getting in on the action.

Please write me at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com if you wanna talk about sound.  Thanks for reading through all this!

on

by

South By Southwest was awesome this year!  March in Texas is still in my opinion the best weather in the world, and it was so nice to get to see so many friends all in one place.  Parquet Courts killed it, and Daniel Francis Doyle’s new band blew my mind… so much good stuff going on….

The Apocalypse won best in program at SXSW, following a strong showing at Sundance.  But maybe the coolest thing about this short is that while hanging in Austin, I caught up with my childhood babysitter and was telling her what I’d been up to.  When I told her the premise of The Apocalypse, her jaw dropped, and she told me that her son had come home one day and showed it to her on Youtube, and that it had sparked a long conversation about information overload in our lives…  SO COOL!!!

The Apocalypse is hitting a bunch of other festivals too, check it out:
Sundance London
Dallas International Film Festival (this weekend!)
Sarasota Film Festival (also this weekend!)
Florida Film Festival (ALSO this weekend!!)
Rincon International Film Festival
Bradfrod International Film Festival

The Fuzz Press Conference

The Fuzz debuted at SXSW, as part of the new Yahoo! Screen (along with a new show by Tenacious D).  There was a great sneak-preview event with the creators and stars (including Herbie and Rainbow) – with jellybeans!  The crowd reaction was great, and I’m really excited for everyone to get to see this.  The first episode will be premiering next month, but you can check out the trailer now.

Wind & Rain, the debut EP by Wild Leaves, is out now.  The limited-edition vinyl comes in a lovely hand-printed cover, which you can stream and purchase on their Bandcamp page.  They’ve also made a couple videos, check ’em out!

NAC_3-Panel_JcardTemplate_FRONT

The new Thin Hymns EP (which I mastered) is available for pre-order.  It’s called Black Water, and you can stream it and purchase a cassette copy at their Bandcamp page.

I’ve been keeping busy in the meantime – working on a master by slowcore shoegazers Vibrant Light, and doing sound design for a new Intel ad campaign.  I also started working on a new musical project with my buddy Bob Jones called Eaters… expect an EP in the next couple months!  So psyched about this…

Thanks for checking out the site – please drop me a line if you’d like to talk sound!  jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

on

by

coracaotexano

I’m heading down to my beloved Austin, TX this weekend for the South By Southwest film festival!  The Apocalypse, a short film by Andrew Zuchero (which I sound designed and mixed), will be showing a few times, and I’m very excited to see it on the big screen!

Another project of mine showing during the festival is the mini-series/feature The Fuzz, directed by Duncan Skiles.  I spent a big chunk of my winter months cranking away at this thing, and am so psyched to see it in action…. think the Muppets meet Goodfellas…  There’s a special screening of the first episode Monday March 11th at Brazos Hall @ 3PM, which you better believe I’ll be at!

In anticipation of all this, I’ve put together a new demo reel – CHECK IT OUT!!

Parquet Courts are playing some sick shows down there too (including the closing party with Kendrick Lamar and Black Lips?!).  They have a new single for “Borrowed Time” coming out March 18th on Rough Trade/What’s Your Rupture?, with two previously-unreleased b-sides from the Light Up Gold sessions.  One of ’em, “Smart Aleck Kid”, hit the web earlier this week:

I’ve been working on a variety of other projects since wrapping The Fuzz… I finished work restoring and remastering the Del Shannon-produced Brett Smiley tapes, and mixed a long-lost single by little-known glam-rock band Fa Bonx, both for What’s Your Rupture.  I’m mixing a couple short films when I get back, and working on a couple albums in April… very excited about spring!!

Thanks for checking this out…  and please get in touch if you wanna talk sound or hang in Austin: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[com]  Thanks again!!