Tag: Change Your Name

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I got some exciting news this week: The Apocalypse – a short film by Andrew Zuchero, which I sound-designed and mixed – will be premiering at Sundance in January!  It was such a fun project to work on, and I think it turned out truly great… I’m very happy about this.  “Four uninspired friends try to come up with a terrific idea for how to spend their Saturday afternoon”, starring Martin Starr from Party Down and Freaks and Geeks and Ella Rae Peck of Gossip Girl fame.

The love for Light Up Gold by Parquet Courts continues to pour in! Time Magazine just named the opener “Master of My Craft” its #5 song of the year (better than Skrillex, almost as good as Taylor Swift). Stereogum has gotten behind it too, premiering the titular track and ranking the LP as the 49th Best Album of the Year.  NICE!  What’s Your Rupture is re-releasing Light Up Gold (on CD as well) just in time for their tour this winter (check out their site for details).

Since their signing, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Kevin, the owner of WYR and all-around cool guy.  One project he brought me on board for is a restoration of a recording by Brett Smiley.  I was unfamiliar with who this was, but Kevin schooled me pretty quickly – teenage glam heart-throb who worked with Del Shannon and then Andrew Loog Oldham, recorded a LP, then had it shelved for 30 years.  The album Breathlessly Brett was finally released in 2004, but these tapes are from before then, when Brett was working with Del Shannon (of Runaway fame).  It features 5 recordings done with Shannon (3 of which are previously unreleased) and some unheard demos…. needless to say, it’s been a cool project to work on.

Another recording to recently resurface is the original Hindu Windmills by Elephant Micah.  Joe O’Connell (E.M.) and I recorded this eight(!) years ago, late at night in a performance hall on the Northwestern campus, while we were working on the Mittens on Strings album Look Up the Sky!! (another album worth revisiting).  Joe wasn’t thrilled with his performances, and as we were discussing what to do with them, a mutual friend accidentally leaked the mixes, which quickly spread across the Internet.  In response, Joe re-recorded the songs himself, which were released a couple years later on Time Lag.  As the years have passed and water has flowed under the bridges, Joe decided to put our sessions online for posterity.  I found the original mixes, did a quick remaster, and they are now available online for a donation as the Hindu Windmills: First Sessions.  I have to say that while I can hear the tiredness at times, and that I will always be disappointed that these songs leaked the way they did, I’m really pleased to have them properly out in the world now – they’re great recordings of wonderful songs.

If you’re free tonight and around the NYC area, come to Glasslands to celebrate the release of Fort Lean’s new EP Change Your Name, and see why the New York Times recently gushed: “Three or four decades ago, Fort Lean would have been a mainstream success spawning emulators. Nowadays it’s a one of one, not that anyone should bother trying to compete.”  Patrick from Chairlift (who produced the EP) will be DJing, and Ludwig Persik (who recently released an awesome self-titled EP) and Cruiser open.

Thanks so much for reading through this!  I sincerely hope you like this stuff as much as I sincerely do.  If you’d like to talk about sound or come check out Doctor Wu’s, please drop me a line: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com

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I just finished mixing the new record by Forest Fire for Fat Cat Records this weekend.  We started the initial recording two months ago in mid-September at Tree Time Studio, which was awesome.  Since then, we’ve been doing overdubs and mixing at Doctor Wu’s, with some preliminary editing and mixing at my place.  I’m really excited about this record, my first proper producer credit!  It’s a good batch of catchy songs with inventive arrangements, with some krautrock and glam flair… I really tried to channel my Inner Eno on this one.  I can’t wait for people to hear this.

A couple weeks ago, I did sound design and mixing for a short film called The Apocalypse.  It stars Martin Starr (from Party Down and Freaks and Geeks) and Ella Rae Peck (of Gossip Girl fame), and was written and directed by Andrew Zuchero.  It’s about the end of the world (duh), and was so much fun to work on.  I don’t want to spoil things, but some of the sounds I was doing Foley for were pretty unbelievable   The Apocalypse will hopefully be making the rounds on the festival circuit this spring.

I also worked with Andrew last month on a series of Intel spots, which you can view at the Intel Ultrabook site.  It’s really hard and fun to do sound design with no music!!

The new Fort Lean EP Change Your Name is out tomorrow.  I co-engineered some of the sessions (the initial drum/bass sessions and some guitar overdubs) along with Jake Aron from the band (and Doctor Wu’s).  It was produced by Patrick Wimberly from Chairlift, and mixed by Michael Brauer – pretty fucking hi-fi!  Check out a couple songs on Stereogum and MTV.

I recently had the opportunity to do another recording upstate, this time with the band Wild Leaves.  We borrowed my friend Austin’s Tascam 388 to record an EP in a quonset hut, and spent a long weekend recording and hanging out by the campfire.  It was a great camp-out style adventure, until Hurricane Sandy came and I ran back to Brooklyn!

Before that, I worked with Jeffrey Gray Somers on an EP of solo material.  We did the basic tracking at Seaside Lounge, and are wrapping up vocals and mixing at Doctor Wu’s in the next few weeks.  It was awesome to be back at Seaside Lounge (were we did Funky Was the State of Affairs), and it’ll be cool to work some Wu magic to the tracks.   You can hear some of his stuff as Jung Bulls on Last.FM

I also recently mastered the new I Ching Quartet record Birdsongs at Doctor Wu’s.  I worked on a few of their records back in Chicago, and I can say with certainty it’s their best yet.

If you haven’t heard the new Parquet Courts LP Light Up Gold yet, do it now.  We tracked it back in February on a Tascam 388 (3 days), mixed it at my place (2 days), and I mastered it after the first one got messed up (1/2 day).  I’ve been a total fan of the LP since we started working on it – it’s one of the best punk records I’ve heard in a long time – and it’s awesome to see all the attention its been getting since it came out in August.  Check out all the kind words from Pitchfork, Stereogum (it’s in their Heavy Rotation), eMusic and Aquarium Drunkard that I’ve seen recently.

Another record that’s been getting some (well-deserved) love is Field II by Wiccans.  I mixed it at Doctor Wu’s this summer, and it’s just an awesome, heavy, brainy beast of a hardcore record.  The AV Club just nominated it the second best Loud album of the month and called it “one of the most intriguing, ambitious, ass-kicking hardcore records of the year”.  They’re almost sold out of the first pressing (which will hopefully be repressed, because they’re beautiful objects), which you can buy (or download for free) here.

I’ve got lots of cool stuff on the calendar, which I’m really looking forward to.  If you ever want to check out Doctor Wu’s or just talk about sound stuff, hit me up: jonathan [dot] schenke [at] gmail [dot] com.  And thanks, as always, for taking the time to read this.