Tag: Parquet Courts

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Gil Scott Heron
Photo by Mischa Richter

Who is Gil Scott-Heron?, the documentary/memorial film about the late musician and poet, is screening in select theaters and available digitally now.  The film, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (the BAFTA-nominated filmmakers behind the Nick Cave pseudo-doc 20,000 Days on Earth), is more tribute than biography, a heartfelt eulogy by friends and family.  I feel honored to have mixed it and been a part of the project.  Okayplayer has the screening dates, and the film is available now from iTunes along with the album Nothing New.

Liturgy have been touring hard since the release of The Ark Work, covering both the US and Europe, with more thoughtful press from publications like Village Voice, Chicago Reader, and the Quietus. I worked with the group to integrate samples and MIDI information into their set (all triggered in real-time by Hunter) to portray some of the arrangements from the record without losing any of the live power of the band. If you haven’t listened to the new record The Ark Work yet, stop reading this and go turn this on immediately!  It’s an album unlike anything else, and was a surreal pleasure to re-listen to it for the first time since mastering (on clear vinyl, no less!).  The Ark Work is out now on Thrill Jockey, and the group has more US dates this summer (with the always-awesome Yvette) and another European tour this fall.

I recently mixed the new album by Dan Friel, entitled Life.  I was an early fan of Parts and Labor, met Dan shortly after moving to Brooklyn, and have shared the stage with him, but this is the first time we’ve ever worked together on something.  It was a real treat!  The new record continues with the palette of blown-out toy keyboard, heavy beats, and mixer feedback, but we worked hard to add more depth and power to the arrangements.  Mastered by Sarah Register at the Lodge, Life sounds larger than that – it’s awesome!  It should be out later this year on Thrill Jockey.

If you didn’t go see PCPC last fall, the mutato-collabo of Parquet Courts and PC Worship, you really missed out.  But fortunately for everyone, there is a live record coming out on Dull Tools!  Recorded at Ramsgate Music Hall, I recently mixed and mastered this with Andrew, Austin and Justin.  I’m not gonna lie – it turned out waaaay better than any of us anticipated: a surprisingly badass and compelling document of a creative blip from some of my favorite musicians.  Here’s a demo of set-opener “Fell Into the Wrong Crowd”.

Parquet Courts also have a couple split 7″s on the way, including another one of the recordings we did during Sunbathing Animal.  Check out their cover of Joey Pizza Slice’s “Pretty Girls”.

A couple of cool compilations that featured some of my work were recently released, like 50 Bands and a Cat for Indiana Equality (featuring a live Protomartyr rendition of “Jumbo’s” that I recorded and mixed) and Reanimator Records’ Fiends in Low Places (which has my remix of “Sorrow” by Frankie Rose, along with heavy hitters by Protomartyr and PC Worship).

I spent some time in the studio this spring with a band from NYC called VBA.  They’ve toured with Kurt Vile and Blonde Redhead, but this EP is their first recording.  We recorded at Seaside Lounge and mixed at Doctor Wu’s, and the sounds are both heavy and brain-y, drawing from the rock experimentation of bands like This Heat and Suicide, with a wallop of psyched-out sludge.  Honestly one of the best drum recordings I’ve captured!  The EP will hopefully be out soon.

I’ve been doing a lot mastering lately, my own mixes and with others as well.  Awards Banquet came into Doctor Wu’s recently to work with me on their debut full length, which was recorded and mixed by Jason Kelly (of Future Punx and Fergus & Geronimo).  The album, coming out on Scioto Records, is a super catchy, classic-sounding rock record, like hearing an old friend from your collection for the first time.  I also mastered a collection of yoga sutra chants by Caroline McCarter for Yoga RX, recorded and mixed by Ian Saylor (from Turn to Crime)… a very blissful way to spend the afternoon.  Unfortunately, the Optimo Music post-punk compilation that I mastered, Now That’s What I Call DIY!, has been postponed due to a cease-and-desist from Sony over the title.  I’ll post more details as I get them.  And Magical Beasts (the new project from members of the I Ching Quartet) is running a fund-raiser on Pledgemusic to get their album (which I mastered) pressed to vinyl.  They’ve almost reached their goal – fans of acoustic folk-pop should definitely check it out!

Photo by Echard Wheeler
Photo by Echard Wheeler

I’ve also been spending a lot of time with Eaters.  We recently created a new sound sculpture called Moment of Inertia, which premiered in May at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA.  Chris Duffy (our visuals member) conceived the piece and created the sculpture (a centrifugal-force-powered glass turntable), and Bob and I created the music (cut to acetate by Josh Bonati).  The premiere was part of the museum’s Third Thursday series in their Glass Studio, which involved a team of glass artists working under the direction of Chris in tandem with our music and lights.  It was a truly unique experience, and fun to step out of the normal performance situations.  We’re working to put together an EP based on Moment of Inertia, to be released later this year on Driftless Recordings.

Eaters also hit the road with Shabazz Palaces recently for a Midwest tour.  Those guys are incredible; it was truly inspirational to watch them play every night.  We’re doing more dates in the Northeast with them in August (including August 5th at Music Hall of Williamsburg), which I’m already looking forward to.  In the meantime, we’re playing this Friday (June 19) at Alphaville (great spot in Bushwick) with Future Punx (our brother/sister band) and Nuraxi (psyched to see them!)

Thanks for reading – please feel free to drop me a line if you want to talk about sound!

 

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Beech Creeps – s/t

 

The self-titled debut from Brooklyn’s Beech Creeps is out now on Monofonus Press!  Critical reaction (from press and fans) has been real good for these guys with another song (the massive slice of sludge “Arm of the T-Rex”) and a full album stream hitting Stereogum over the past few weeks.  They share many kind words, calling the album “aggressively imaginative rock… [that] feels raw and blood-thirsty in a way that current rock just doesn’t anymore.”  They also hit the nail on the head when they talked about the aspects of “fun” and “play” in this music – we had a blast making this record.  I’m also just very proud of the work that we did, so it’s real treat to see if finding such an appreciative audience.  Check it out now if you haven’t already!

Eaters recently released some new material as well – a contribution to the ‘Dreams’ series by the website Stadiums & Shrines.  The premise is that each artist receives a collage of a foreign land, and musically interprets it as they imagine it.  We chose Finland (which neither Bob nor I have been to), and the result is above.  Make sure to visit the site in order to read the hilariously bizarre dream sequence they’ve depicted, replete with giants, talking reindeer, shape-shifters, soul-birds, and lots of laughter.

Eaters live, photo by Sam Cole

 

We also played a couple of fantastic Eaters shows in February.  We started the month by playing with our Dull Tools homies Parquet Courts and Future Punx at Palisades on an instantly sold-out show.  These three groups are so intertwined and supportive of one another, it was a wonderful family affair.  And just recently, we supported Dan Deacon at the record-release show for his new album Gliss Riffer at Rough Trade NYC.   It was an absolute treat to be a part of that show – playing some new material, on a proper stage and sound system, to a new audience, with an old friend on his big night.  The L Magazine had some great things to say about us, and Impose took some fantastic photographs of the night.

I spent some time this month working with the duo Lushes on their upcoming album Service Industry.  They recorded and will mix the record with Aaron Mullan (Sonic Youth‘s studio engineer and leader of the band Tall Firs), and we worked primarily on creating synth parts and providing treatments for samples and vocals.  It was an interesting and different approach to record making for me – not that I haven’t done these things in the past, but that I usually work on those things during recording or mixing a record.  Working exclusively on synths and treatments allowed us to expand the record while keeping the original sound/vision intact.  I’m a fan of the band and their debut What Am I Doing?, and was really psyched to work with them on this one.  Look for the record later this year on Felte.

I also started working with Forest Fire on their new record.  Their previous record – 2013’s Screens – remains one of my all-time-favorite record-making experiences, and we were all twitching with anticipation to start a new record together.  We did a few days of basic tracking at the end of the month, and will be passing files back and forth throughout the spring.  I’m really curious and excited to hear how this album develops, but it seems to be refining and expanding upon the electro-romantic streak of Screens.

Make sure to visit Lightning Bug’s bandcamp page, where they’re posted their debut record Floaters as a pay-what-you-wish download and cheap cassette.  I mastered this record earlier this year, based on an introduction through a mutual friend, and was mightily impressed by the quality of their work – a potent blend of Broadcast-style psychedelia, krautrock, shoegaze, and ambient drift.  I just re-listened to it as I wrote this post – it’s great!

Also now available on bandcamp is Wondering Home, the new album by Hums & Haws.  Matt and I worked together at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, so it was great to bring it back around again to work with him on this record.  My friend Nick Broste recorded it, and I mixed much of it (along with a couple songs by fellow ESS engineer Todd Carter) and mastered it here in Brooklyn.  Enjoy!

And in case you were wondering – yes, I re-did my website.  Hope y’all like it.

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Liturgy - The Ark Work

The Ark Work, the new record by Liturgy, was announced this past month.  I’m truly thrilled for people to hear this album – many people gave a lot of themselves to realize this vision and see the album through, and it is truly unlike anything else.   NPR premiered the lead single “Quetzalcoatl” on All Songs Considered, with Impose, Ad Hoc, and others picking it up as well.  It’s also worth checking out this strange and beautiful trailer by Zev Deans.  We tracked the band at Strange Weather (who recently mentioned the album on API’s website), worked on overdubs and arrangements at Doctor Wu’s and Hunter’s place (with additional recording and programming by my longtime friend and associate Frank Musarra), and mixed it at Doctor Wu’s.  Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering Service did the master and lacquer.  The Ark Work is out March 24th on Thrill Jockey.

Another record I’m excited to have had announced this month is the self-titled Beech Creeps album.  We recorded this in two days in Secret Project Robot last summer, I mixed and mastered it as we could all get together, and it slays.  I wrote something about the Melvins, Thin Lizzy, and Saturday morning cartoons when we first worked on this album, and I still think that applies!  “Times Be Short” was the first taste of the record – which got some love from blogs like  Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Impose, and others – with a video for “Sun of Sud” following on Noisey a couple weeks later.  Check ’em out!  They’re playing a record-release show in Brooklyn on February 26th at Shea Stadium with also-homies PC Worship and Turn to Crime… see you there?  Beech Creeps is out March 3rd on Monfononus Press.

Nuclear Santa Claust have a new album – Je Ne Sais Claust – coming out this week (February 2nd) on Don Giovanni.  We recorded this at Seaside Lounge on an MX-5050 and mixed and mastered it at Doctor Wu’s last summer.  Classic SST/The Spits vibes here – tough hardcore punk with a melodic bent, a Gennesse in one hand, and a shit-eating grin on its face.  We knocked it out so quickly and had so much fun doing it, re-listening to it this week was pretty nostalgic – I’m really happy for this to be out!  Noisey premiered the first single “Sayonara Baby”, and the band is playing Don Giovanni fest (w/ California X, Downtown Boys and more) this weekend to celebrate the record release.  Come hang!

Also out now is In My Dreams, a singles collection and the first in a re-issue series by early-80s Australian punk outsiders The Sunday Painters.  I was unfamiliar with the band and their work before What’s Your Rupture head Kevin Pedersen and reissue producer Michael Train approached me about remastering their back-catalog(ue).  Byron Coley calls their work “an ecstatically weird mix of skewed pop, art, and noise… like a cross of early Swell Maps, the Velvets, and Cabaret Voltaire.”These singles and their two full-lengths cover a lot of ground – from jangly to industrial sounds but always with a wink of mischievousness – and each release comes with download-only never-before-heard bonus material.    Noisey (via my man Timbo!) has an interview and stream of the record, which serves as a great introduction to the Sunday Painters.  In My Dreams is out now on What’s Your Rupture?, with more coming soon.

And out of seemingly nowhere, my Chicago pals Unmanned Ship have a new 7″ coming out.  I mastered these songs – “Crystal Pepsi” b/w “Pad Thai Fighter” – years ago with For Whom the Bowl Tolls, and they’re now available through Maximum Pelt Records.  The guys in this band are all friends of mine from living in Chicago, and Kevin has got some love for his work in Oozing Wound, so it’s a real pleasure to see these jams unleashed.  Grab your copy, but not before I do!

I tried my best to take time off this past month, but still made time to work on a couple projects other than my own.  My Detroit friends Derek Stanton and Ian Saylor from Turn to Crime and Greg Ahee from Protomartyr have been making an album in their downtime, and we had talked about me mixing it for months, which I finally found the time to do.  Every time I describe it to someone, I say the words “synth pop” and then the person’s eyes get really wide, but it’s totally like that – completely skewed yet genuine synth pop that’s worth widening your eyes for.  Who knows what they’re calling it or when it’s coming out, but I’m mastering it soon and hopefully it’ll be out before too long.

I also recorded, mixed, and mastered an EP for the band Junk Boys, a new band that includes members of Organs and Dream Police.  We tracked it in one day at Seaside Lounge and mixed and mastered it one day later that week at my place, and it turned out great… bluesy, boozy, rock and roll.  Look out for them around NYC this year, should be a good show!

Parquet Courts, Future Punx, Eaters

I spent the rest of last month working on Eaters with my musical partner Bob Jones.  We played a fun show with US Girls, Slim Twig, and Bottoms earlier this month, were featured on Oh My Rockness, and have waded deep into the pool (sea? ocean?) of new writing/recording.  We’re hoping to debut some of it at our upcoming shows – February 9th @ Palisades with Parquet Courts (who recently played on David Letterman) and Future Punx (who not-too-long-ago hit Puerto Rico and had this glowing writeup on Tiny Mix Tapes), and February 25th @ Rough Trade NYC with Dan Deacon for his record-release show of his new album Glass Riffer.  I hope you bought tickets already because these are both long-sold-out and I’d love to see you there.

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Spin Band of the Year 2014

Well… there goes 2014.  It seems like only a short while ago that I was shaking off NYE and going upstate with Parquet Courts to finish Sunbathing Animal.  That album earned its way onto nearly everyone’s year-end lists, including Spin (#2), Pitchfork (#24), Rolling Stone (#28), NME (#35), and Stereogum (#50).  Based on the strength of that record, their follow-up full-length-EP Content Nausea (which featured some outtakes from our SBA/Tally sessions), and months of killer live shows, Spin declared them “2014 Band of the Year”.  The band played a sold-out show at Webster Hall this month – the day the Spin article posted and with homies PC Worship and Blues Control – that felt like a victory lap for everyone involved.  I couldn’t be more thrilled for my dudes, and can’t wait to see what they do in 2015.

 

Mannequin Pussy’s Gypsy Pervert also got some best-of love this year after being reissued on Tiny Engines.  Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone put it as his #9 album of the year (Sunbathing Animal was his #1, holla!), and as the #1 cassette release of the year.  Way to go guys!!

 

And though they didn’t get the year-end accolades that Sunbathing Animal did, PC Worship’s Social Rust, Mazes’ Wooden Aquarium, and Dream Police’s Hypnotized – as well as the Eaters LP (duh) – are some other records that came out in 2014 that I feel very proud to have been a part of.  These are compositionally and sonically interesting albums that you should check out now, if you haven’t already!

Another one of my favorite projects of 2014 is the recently-released second single by glam rockers Fa Bonx.   I. love. these. songs!  The first single sold out and this one’s even better, so don’t wait! “49 Stick” b/w “Tramps Jamble” is out now on What’s Your Rupture?

 

Fort Lean – a band that includes Jake Aron, my studio partner at Doctor Wu’s – are releasing a new record called Quiet Day, their first full-length.  The album was recorded and mixed through 2013 and 2014, and the time and energy spent making it is evident in both their songwriting and arrangements.  Daniel Schlett mixed the bulk of the record at Strange Weather; I mixed one song entirely and did additional mixing with Jake across the rest of the record at Doctor Wu’s.  Quiet Day comes out spring 2015 on Ooh-La-La Records.

 

Also recently released is “Dreams”, the new single by Australian darkwave duo Buzz Kull.  I met Marcel earlier this year while touring Australia with Parquet Courts, and was psyched when he asked me to work with them on this track. Marcel did an interview with Noisey recently (thanks for the shout-out!), and the physical single is out soon on Fabrika Records.

 

Honduras @ Outlier Inn

I spent a week mid-November at Outlier Inn with Honduras, recording their full-length debut.  It was a real treat to be back at Outlier Inn (where we finished Sunbathing Animal) – the gear and vibe there are truly great.  We recorded to my Otari MX-5050, and the band were eager to capture the live energy while pushing into new sonic territories, which gave me a real license to experiment with sounds.  We mixed and mastered at Doctor Wu’s earlier this month, and it’s a truly killer-sounding album.  Look for it spring 2015 on Black Bell Records.

Another record I recently worked on was with a new band called Shop Talk.  Basic tracking was done by my friend Kyle Keays-Hagerman (who I worked with on the Dream Police LP), and I recorded vocals as well as mixed and mastered at Doctor Wu’s.  It’s tightly-wound melodic punk – the metaphor we kept using was “raw nerve” -and turned out way cool.

I also recently mixed a handful of songs for Rat Columns (led by Lace Curtain tour buddy David West).  Rat Columns is way different than his work with Lace Curtain or Total Control – bittersweet, C-86 vibey pop songs.  I’m not sure what’s in store for these tunes, but hopefully they’ll be out soon.

And I’m wrapping up an album by Hums and Haws, the studio project of Chicagoan Matt Kordonowy.  Matt was an intern at Experimental Sound Studio while I worked there, and it’s been great to reconnect and work together on this record.  I’ve mixed many of the songs on the album (ESS engineer Todd Carter mixed the others) and am mastering it now.  The songs on the record are quite varied – from beat-less washes of melody, to grungy pop songs that recall both the Kinks and Beck, to percussion-heavy rockers, and everything in-between – and it was a fun challenge to pull it all together.

I’ve also mastered a few records over the last couple of months: the debut album from new band Lightning Bug (a heady blend of shoegaze mind-numbers, psych-pop ala Broadcast, and ambient drone), the third EP from Railings (rock/pop equal parts dreamy and mathy), and a new album by the I Ching Quartet (acoustic folk ensemble and old friends from Chicago).

I’ll be spending most of the next couple months working on Eaters with my main man Bob Jones.  We’ll be writing and recording new material and have some shows coming up in the new year, including a show with Wham City’s own Dan Deacon (February 25th at Rough Trade NYC).  We got together a couple weeks ago to start plotting out this next record, and recorded this musical gift for everyone.  It’s a cover of “Radioland” by Kraftwerk, based on an arrangement Bob wrote for guitar.

 

Happy holidays y’all – see you in 2015.

Jonny @ Outlier Inn

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Eaters live

Lots happening since my last update…

Eaters toured the northeast/midwest in October with Lace Curtain and did some non-CMJ shows during CMJ in New York.  We played some great and memorable shows with some great and memorable bands – too many to mention, but special shout outs to Protomartyr (always awesome), Turn to Crime (psyched to be working on a collabo with these guys – Derek, whaddup??), Koko vs Real Life in Montreal (seriously, please record something!), Dull Tools (represent), Big Mama’s House in Philly, my Chicago people, and of course David/Lace Curtain.  Impose posted some photos of our show with Protomartyr at Death By Audio, even sneaking one of man-behind-the-curtain/third-Eater Chris Duffy.

 

Eaters also appeared on Driftless Ambient 1 with an improvised composition titled “Banner of Your Choosing”.  I love how this song came about and turned out, and really happy to be a part of this compilation.  Stream it above, and check out track-by-track details and hear the whole record on Dazed.

For the month before that, I was working with Liturgy on their new record.  It’s an immense record – intricate and beautiful and fucking heavy – and its the culmination of years of work by Hunter, the band, and many others.  I am thrilled to have been a part of this album, and absolutely can’t wait for people to hear it.  We recorded at the illustrious Strange Weather in Brooklyn, with additional recording and production done by my long-time friend and associate Frank Musarra, and mixed at Doctor Wu’s.  I wish I had something from it to share, but I don’t, so just watch this clip of them playing with Peter Fonda on drums instead.

 

Watch WE THE ECONOMY – This Won’t Hurt a Bit on Vimeo.

I do have plenty of other stuff to share though, like this short film by Mary Harron (director of American Psycho and I Shot Andy Warhol) that I sound-designed and mixed.  It’s a part of We the Economy, a series of shorts about the US economy, produced by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), which screened for free last month and are currently streaming online with supplemental information about the wide variety of topics covered.  Mary’s is called This Won’t Hurt a Bit, and is about the the history and sorry current shape of the American healthcare system.  Bob Balaban, Lili Taylor, and many other familiar faces appear – this was really fun to work on.

 

 

There are several new releases out this week that I worked on as well.  I co-mixed the new Dream Police record Hypnotized with Kyle Keays-Hagerman at Doctor Wu’s in the spring, and it’s out now on Sacred Bones.  Dream Police is Mark and Nick from the Men, and this record veers way off into psychedelia and synth-rock, getting comparisons like “a scuzzy and potent take on that whole Drive soundtrack sound” and “a demented Dire Straits record”.  The record premiered on Pitchfork Advance, and made it into Stereogum’s Heavy Rotation – check it out!

 

 

The new Future Punx EP I’m So Inspired is also out this week via Dull Tools.  Drummer and swell guy Jason Kelly recorded and mixed much of this (with the basics tracked at Rubber Tracks), and we worked at Doctor Wu’s to finish the mixes and master.  It’s got a classic new wave vibe, like some lost classic from the early 80s, hitting all the right notes for people pining for more bands like Devo, the Units, and Tom Tom Club.  Noisey debuted the song “Forgive the Doubt”, and Impose posted the video for “Spike Train”, their track with Parquet Courts on the LAMC series (and which we mastered in the same sessions).  People between NYC and Texas should make a point of checking them out on tour, and people everyone should listen to the EP, streaming above and on sale now.

 

 

Parkay Quarts/Parquet Courts have a new record called Content Nausea out this week as well.  Austin and Andrew recorded and mixed this themselves about six weeks ago (fastest turnaround ever, no big deal), though some work we did together during the Sunbathing Animal/Tally sessions shows up here as well.  I love the detours and explorations they take as “Parkay Quarts“, and it’s cool to see some old favorites re-imagined and find a home alongside some killer new stuff.  Of note is the mastering job by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound and how cohesive these recordings made on a 4-track cassette, on an 8-track reel-to-reel, in Ableton sessions, and from a karaoke jam sound together.  Awesome all around – check it out above, out now on What’s Your Rupture/Rough Trade.

Lots more happening now – thanks for reading!

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Mazes - Wooden Aquarium

Two very different but equally exciting records that I worked on drop this week – Wooden Aquarium by the British band Mazes and Social Rust by Brooklyn’s own PC Worship.  I love the way both of these records sound and I love both of these bands, so it’s wonderful to see so many reviews remarking on the sonic quality and calling them both the best of each band’s work.

I produced the Mazes record this past February, recording it upstate at the Fat Cat studio and mixing it at Doctor Wu’s over the course of two weeks.  It was a crazy bonding experience – everyone jet-lagged (I had just got back from Australia), the rental van getting robbed outside my apartment (my bag with my laptop, hard drives, camera – gone), getting snowed in upstate and digging our way up to the studio – and I think that intensity and camaraderie really comes across.  DIY Magazine has been all over Wooden Aquarium, with a glowing review, an interview with Jack Cooper, and a track-by-track stream and guide; NME gave it a 8/10 review; and it was BBC Radio 6’s Album of the Day last week.  Alan Douches did a great job on the master – this record sounds incredible.  Wooden Aquarium is out now on Fat Cat Records.

PC Worship - Social Rust

Social Rust is just nuts.  I mixed and mastered the thing so I’ve probably heard it more times and more in depth than anyone aside from lead-worshipper Justin Frye, and there are things that still catch me by surprise.  This record sounds unlike any other record I’ve ever worked on – a mud-and-blood spattered, moth-eaten tapestry of absurdity – and I love it.  Ad Hoc interviewed Justin about the record, and Impose Magazine raved: “Social Rust is PC Worship at their very best, even if their best is dissonant and unsettling, voyeuristic and creepy, maniacal and rapturous. Maybe it’s a reflection of the times, or maybe it’s just a good record. Either way, listen to it and lose yourself a little.”  I couldn’t agree more.  Social Rust is out now on Northern Spy / Dull Tools.

Also out this week is the re-release of Mannequin Pussy’s Gypsy Pervert, re-mastered and re-sequenced on vinyl for the first time.  I mixed this with them last year, and it’s killer – I’m really psyched to see it getting another life.  Check out this interview they did with Impose recently, and go see them when they come through your town soon.  Gypsy Pervert is out now on Tiny Engines.

And out next week (September 16th) is the newest single in Famous Class Records’ LAMC series (#13) – Parquet Courts b/w Future Punx.  It’s kinda like the return of Fergus & Geronimo…  “This is Happening Now” was recorded during the Sunbathing Animal sessions and mixed this summer, “Spike Train” was recorded and mixed by Jason Kelly, and I mastered both sides.  All proceeds go to VH1 Save the Music – a non-profit dedicated to music education in public schools.

Parquet Courts also recently released a music video for “Bodies Made Of” recorded live at their show at Sugar Hill Supper Club this summer, and directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (whose amazing Nick Cave pseudo-doc 20,000 Days on Earth comes out later this month).  I recorded, mixed, and mastered this bad boy too.

I recently went on a road trip to Cleveland to see the opening of the new university center at Case Western Reserve University, which houses Welcome to Cleveland, a new interactive installation I worked on with Thu Tran, Ivan Safrin, and Bobo Do.  It was incredible to see and hear our work in the space, and surreal to be back on my old campus and honored at the opening.  Check out that photo below for an idea of what I’m talking about (that game on screen is inspired by the 1986 Balloon Fest, where your head controls a helicopter and you try to pop as many balloons as possible).  The games were as completely silly and weird in real life as we had hoped, so it was extra exciting to get to work with Thu, Ivan and Bobo on a new game this month.  I’m sure more will be announced about it soon, but it’s even sillier and even weirder than the others.

Welcome to Cleveland

I also had the opportunity this past month to do some sound design and mixing for Mary Harron (director of American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol, and The Notorious Bettie Page).  The short film is part of an upcoming series about the US economy produced by director Morgan Spurlock and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and is a black comedy about the healthcare system.  It was fantastic to be a part of this project, and hey – I learned something too!  The New York Times ran a story about the series, which airs this fall.

I’ve been doing more mastering recently as well, working on a split EP with Tonstartssbandht and Hot & Cold, finishing up the Beech Creeps record from this summer, and mastering a single by Von Hack.

And while I’ve been doing a lot of post-production this month, I did get a chance to break out the MX-5050 with the band Pocket Hercules down at Seaside Lounge.  The tracks sound cool, we’ll be mixing in a couple weeks at Doctor Wu’s.

Eaters have been keeping busy too.  We have a show this Saturday (September 13) with Survive from Austin, TX, an incredible band live by all accounts – get your tickets and come on out!  We’ve got some new material coming out this month, including a track on the newly-announced Driftless Ambient 1 compilation.  And more shows soon, including a tour with Lace Curtain (a Total Control/Rat Columns offshoot) and some CMJ shows.

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Doctor Wu's

I had no idea I was a producer you don’t even know you know until I came across this article by Brooklyn Magazine last week.  I’m listed along with such fantastic engineers as Jarvis Taveniere (great guy and fellow MX-5050 enthusiast), Chris Coady, and Shane Stoneback.  Thanks guys – you made my week!

I just finished a new record by NYC punks/goons Nuclear Santa Claust called Je Ne Sais Claust (yes, really).  We tracked it live to the Otari MX-5050 at Seaside Lounge one weekend and mixed and mastered it the next at Doctor Wu’s.  It was a total blast to work on, and a total blast out of the speakers – we harnessed a great Black Flag/Dead Kennedys vibe in sound and intensity, and cracked each other up constantly.  I can’t wait for this to come out on Don Giovanni Records.

 

I’ve also been working on a heart-felt documentary/portrait of Gil Scott Heron.  Told from the perspective of candid interviews with his closest friends and associates, it’s less of a biography and more of a tribute to a departed friend.  It was directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, whose excellent current film 20,000 Days on Earth (a pseudo-doc starring/about Nick Cave) premiered at Sundance and will in theaters nation-wide next month.  I feel very honored to be mixing this film.

I was back in Chicago a couple weeks ago to work again at Pitchfork Music Festival.  I realized it was my eighth year working for the festival, and fifth running sound on the Blue Stage – whoa.  It’s always good to be back with the old crew and see a bunch of old buddies in the Midwest, and it’s the only front-of-house system I’ve ever seen with a Crane Song limiter – I love mixing on that system!  Bonus: in the airport, I came across this two-page article on Parquet Courts in the July issue of Rolling Stone!

PC Worship - Social Rust

I am thrilled to be able to share some music from the new PC Worship record Social Rust.  Pitchfork (and Stereogum and Impose) posted the semi-title track ‘Rust’ last week, to pretty unanimous excitement.  I mixed and mastered this record earlier in the year with lead-Worshipper Justin Frye (who recorded it at Roulette), and we blew each other away with what we came up with.  It’s honestly one of my favorite records I’ve worked on recently, by one of my favorite bands playing, so hold on to your butts.  Social Rust comes out September 9th on Northern Spy / Dull Tools.

 

Another skronk-tastic record I have to share is Jungle Green Meets the Blood Sisters.  Andrew/Jungle Green has worked with me to master his last few releases at Doctor Wu’s, and it’s been really fascinating to hear the growth and diversity of his music.  He’s released two singles of lo-fi doo-wop crooner jams with Kingfisher Bluez, but this new EP is a concentrated burst of no-wave-y freakouts focused around food and girls, featuring The Books‘ Paul de Jong on cello tantrums.  It’s a free download, and worth every penny!

 

And while we’re talking about guys upset about food and girls, I’d like to point out that The Last of the Great Romantics is now available online!  I mixed this film with director Duncan Skiles last fall, and it made the festival circuit earlier this year.  I’m a big fan of this rom-com – it’s clever and funny in an endearingly humble way, and as they point out on their site, cheaper than a cup of coffee!  Check it out!

 

Eaters is playing next week (August 13th) at Nothing Changes (formerly Weird Wednesdays) at Home Sweet Home in Manhattan.  We’ve got a new song in the reportoire, so come hang if you’ve got nothing better to do on a Wednesday night!  We play first, Future Blondes headline.

Thanks for reading this!  I’ve got a lot of great projects on deck, will post more when I can… feel free to reach out at jonathan[dot]schenke [at] gmail[dot]com

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EATERS - front cover ref

Pitchfork recently ran a review of the Eaters LP, my collaboration with my friend Bob Jones.  There are a lot of great quotes (“the textures on Eaters are beautiful: Grim and subdued but so rich you could raise tomatoes in them”), and it’s honestly just amazing to see our personal project recognized on such a large scale, regardless of the just-ok score and slightly slighting tone.  Mixed emotions for sure, so we spent the rest of the day making a track for an ambient compilation due later this year – can’t wait for everyone to hear it.

Eaters are playing two very different but equally exciting shows in a couple weeks.  The first is Friday July 11th at Glasslands Gallery, opening for !!! – tickets are going fast, but some are still on sale.  If you can’t get a ticket in time or just would prefer to watch synthesizer music on the beach, then you should come to the Brooklyn Vegan/Dull Tools Beach Party!  It’s taking place Sunday July 13th at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club, and we’ll be playing alongside our friends Future Punx, Final Bloom, and newcomers Royal Garde.

Brooklyn Vegan/Dull Tools Party Flyer

I’ve seen Future Punx absolutely slay the last couple times they played and they’re some of my best friends around town, so it goes without saying that I had a blast working with them on their new EP I’m So Inspired.  Jason Kelly (funkiest drummer I know and a walking-talking-smiley-face to boot) did a fantastic job of recording and preparing the mixes, which I spruced up and spazzed out at Doctor Wu’s.  It sounds as epic and fun and trippy as you’d want a band called “future punx” singing “see you in the future” to sound – really epic and fun and trippy!  I mastered the thing too, which should drop later this year.

Recording Beech Creeps

And while we’re on the topics of “fun”, “trippy” and “beaches”, I should probably talk about making the new Beech Creeps record.  They’re a trio of dudes who played in bands like Pterodactyl, Ex-Models, and Yeasayer, and the album’s equal parts noisy, catchy, and goofy.  It’s kinda like if the Melvins wrote a record harnessing the good-time riffage of bands like Thin Lizzy and Blue Cheer, which was then turned into a beach-themed Saturday morning cartoon.  We recorded it live at Secret Project Robot and mixed it at my home studio.  Oh, and if you’re a granola-eating hippie like me, you should make a point of trying the Coconut Almond Beach Crunch flavor of Mark’s Monster Crunch.  It’s incredible!!

I started playing and recording music in the midwest, first in Cleveland then in Chicago, and met a lot of amazing musicians along the way.  Among them were a crew of Bloomington, Indiana folks like Elephant Micah, Bronze Float and Vollmar.  It was a nice surprise then to get an email from David Brant of Bronze Float, asking if I’d be interested in mixing and mastering his new album Standard Candles.  It was recorded by Joe O’Connell (aka Elephant Micah), and features performances by members of his old band and Vollmar.  The songs are both deeply melodic and humble, reminiscent of records by Lou Barlow, Skip Spence, and Arthur Russell (in his Love is Overtaking Me vein).  It was wonderful to reconnect with David, and I’m just happy to have played a part in getting these songs out there and restarting this project.

Fa Bonx 7"

I also recently mixed and mastered the new single by glam-punk duo Fa Bonx.  I really dug working on their first single (‘Jilto Boy’ b/w ‘The Rinda’ on What’s Your Rupture?), but this new one blew me away!  I found this review of ‘The Rinda’ up on Pitchfork (“an immediately gratifying burner… wide-eyed, candy coated rock’n’roll”), and they recently did a hilarious interview with CMJ.

Mazes - Wooden Aquarium

I’m thrilled to be able to share this first song “Astigmatism” (via Spin) from the upcoming Mazes record Wooden Aquarium, due September 9th on Fat Cat.  We recorded this upstate at the Fat Cat studio to 2″ 16-track tape in the middle of multiple blizzards, and mixed it over at Doctor Wu’s.  It was a wonderful experience, walking away from the sessions with not only an incredible sounding record, but some really good new friends as well.  I miss these guys, damn Atlantic Ocean…  Heather Strange from Future Punx and I did backing vocals on this record, and Teenage Cool Kid/fantastic painter Bradley Kerl did the artwork.

 

And Parquet Courts continue to bring in the accolades, from Rolling Stone naming ‘Raw Milk’ the number 1 song-of-the-year-so-far, to a write-up in the Guardian, to a review on NPR’s Fresh Air.  If you haven’t heard Sunbathing Animal yet, me and everyone else don’t know what you’re waiting for.

Also: Careers, the Beverly record by my friends Frankie Rose and Drew Citron., is out this week on Kanine Records.  I did some tracking with them early on in the process, and to be honest, I’m not sure how much of it made the final cut…. drums on 4-5 songs, some vocals I think, maybe some guitars and bass?  Regardless, it’s a fun blast of Amps-style buzzy pop music with gorgeous harmonies, mixed by my studio partner Yale Yng-Wong at Doctor Wu’s.

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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!!