Detroit’s finest Turn To Crime return with Down In The Basement, a full-length exploration of art-damaged synth rock written and performed in collaboration with Protomartyr‘s Greg Ahee. I’ve been a fan of TTC since my group Eaters first shared a stage with them in 2014, and I had a blast mixing and mastering this record. Lead TTC’er Derek Stanton has since moved to LA, and probably has another half dozen gems like this ready to drop… don’t miss out! Stream it below, and visit their Bandcamp page to purchase it and read more information.
New music by Parquet Courts, the Drums, PC Worship, Turn to Crime, The Britanys, Dougie Poole, Operator Music Band and more…
To kick things off, Parquet Courts‘ collaboration with Bun B finally came out! They debuted this version of “Captive of the Sun” on Colbert last summer with members of PC Worship, Blues Control, and my bandmate Bob Jones. Austin Brown and I went into Doctor Wu’s shortly after that to put together this remix, which has a chopped n’ screwed version by DJ Candlestick and OG Ron C on the B-side. Pitchfork premiered the track, along with a Houston rap playlist by Young Doc Gooden (fka Austin Brown)… so proud to still have my 713- number. Pick it up on limited-edition LP via Rough Trade, and check out the lyric video below.
I was also super excited to see the premiere of The Drums‘ new single “Blood Under My Belt”. Pitchfork premiered the song last week, as the first single from the new record “Abysmal Thoughts”. Bandleader Jonny Pierce and I worked together last summer at Doctor Wu’s, disassembling his demos and rebuilding them into something else entirely. I’m really happy to have recorded and mixed this album, and I can’t wait for more of it to be released. Mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound, “Abysmal Thoughts” will be released in June on Anti-.
PC Worship – one of my favorite groups going – released their new album Buried Wish, which I had the pleasure to master and help sequence with Justin Frye. All of the PC Worship records (and many PC Worship songs) have their own series of detours and digressions, which is particularly true of this album – it veers from ornate horn arrangements to grunge-sludge stomp to acoustic/field recording meanderings and everywhere else in between. Hopefully you caught them on tour with Naomi Punk, but either way you should catch them next month with The Dreebs. Check out the great press in Pitchfork, Noisey, and Clrvynt, and pick up Buried Wish on Northern Spy now.
My fellow electro-rock weirdos Turn to Crime released their latest (fourth? sixth?) record Secondary in early February. Derek Stanton records all of the music himself at his own Molten Sound studio in Detroit, and you can hear that freedom of creativity and amazing collection of gear throughout each of his records. Secondary, which I mixed and Sarah Register mastered last year, is my personal favorite – “Chasing”, “Dead Man”, and the title track are all undeniable gems. Check out these features on Noisey and Brooklyn Vegan, and pick up the record through Mugg and Bopp.
Bushwick rock+rollers The Britanys released their debut EP Five A Side, which premiered with an enthusiastic NME review. We recorded these songs in two different sessions, deciding in the end to go with the stripped-down basement recordings for this EP – they just rocked harder! Check them out at SXSW, and stream/purchase Five A Side from the group’s Bandcamp.
Electronic country-crooner Dougie Poole released his debut LP Wideass Highway on JMC Aggregate. I mixed and mastered this strange and beautiful record last year, and was happy to see it featured in both FADER and Ad Hoc. Do yourself a favor and pick it up at Dougie’s Bandcamp.
Fuzzy synth rockers Operator Music Band‘s debut LP Puzzlephonics I & II came out last week. The album pairs two EPs (recorded by band member Dara Hirsch) which we mixed and mastered at Doctor Wu’s last fall. Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan both featured the group, who is heading out on tour this week toward SXSW. Pick up a copy now on New Professor Music, and stream it below.
My German indie-rock buddies Behave! released a video for “Someone”, the first single from the record we did last summer in Hannover. It was a pleasure working with the group over there on a Studer A800 with a bunch of vintage German mics, and I’m really happy with the results, which I mixed and mastered back in NYC. If you read German, you may enjoy this interview on Diffus, but even if you don’t, you’ll probably enjoy the song (it’s in English).
NYC alterna-singer-songwriter Tica Douglas’ new single “The Same Thing” was recently released. The Wild Honey Pie and Gold Flake Paint both featured the track, which I mixed and mastered as part of the new record Our Lady Star of the Sea, Help and Protect Us. 2014’s Joey was released to great reviews, and I’m excited that this one will be released on Team Love later in May. Stay tuned…
In a similarly off-kilter-folk vein, Dark Tea’s debut EP was released last month. I mastered this for Gary Canino, who also plays in the fierce NYC punk band Rips. CLRVYNT wrote about the EP, and you can purchase it on Bandcamp.
And Brian Chillemi (also of shredders Junk Boys) released a video single for the new song “Child of the Earth” (which I mastered). Read about it on Impose, and buy the track on Bandcamp.
Also released: Eventide debuted their new plugin ‘Fission‘. It’s the first in their line of “Structural Effects”, which separates the transient and tonal information of a source, and allows you to effect each separately. I consulted with the designers Russ & Tom and my friend Joe Waltz early on in the process of development, and contributed a handful of presents to the plugin. Check out this explanation here and download the demo now!
I spent some time upstate this past month, checking out the progress on the incredible new control room at Outlier Inn (where I recorded Parquet Courts’ Sunbathing Animal and Honduras’ Rituals). I always loved visiting and working at the space, but with this new room (designed by Wes Lachot) and new console (Tom Elmhirst’s modified Neve VR 72), it’s going to be a truly incredible place to make a record. I can’t wait for the opening this May.
I also spent some time with Acid Dad, recording and co-producing their debut LP. We recorded the basics to my Otari MX-5050 at their studio upstate, and mixed it in Brooklyn at Doctor Wu’s. It’s a fierce and fun album – I’m excited for people to hear this one. Check them out later this month on the road with Honduras.
One last thing: I posted a new Soundcloud playlist too, if you’re interested in hearing a mix of different things I’ve worked on.
Happy New Year everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site – it was crazy end to 2016…
My group Eaters put together an installation of sound and light sculptures at Knockdown Center in December. Entitled Eyes Have Brightened, the exhibition opened as part of the massive Parquet Courts event (where I mixed their set as well) and was up through the end of the season. From the statement:
Building on the visual and sonic vocabulary of their unique live music performances, the show features sound and light sculptures and immersive installation elements by Christopher Duffy. This will be the New York premiere of their performative sound sculpture ‘Moment of Inertia’, and will feature a new soundtrack for the installation composed by Bob Jones and Jonathan Schenke.
‘Eyes Have Brightened’ installation shot, photo by Steven Probert
At Chris’ suggestion, Bob and I spent a few days making some improvised, beat-less instrumental music for the installation. Prisms, the resulting soundtrack album, was featured on Brooklyn Vegan and AdHoc, who called it “transportive… full of minimalist tones, Prisms oscillates between hopeful and buoyant swells to eerie and confounding synths.” Prisms is streaming below, and available to download from Bandcamp.
Tangentially, I was featured in an Eventide video, where I discussed their new TEC Award-nominated plugin TVerb. I was a consultant and “alpha-tester” for the plugin (which is inspired by Tony Visconti’s recording techniques employed on David Bowie’s “Heroes”), and used it throughout the mixing of the upcoming sophomore Eaters LP (due this spring on Dull Tools). Check out the video on Eventide’s Facebook page.
NYC psych-punks The Men released their sixth album Devil Music in November. The back-to-basics LP was recorded live-to-tape in their practice space by Jordan Lovelace (of Pampers and Tournament), and I mixed/mastered it at Doctor Wu’s with the group last spring. Many reviewers have used terms like “raw”, “caustic”, “cathartic”, and “primal” – all of which are apt descriptions for this awesome show of force. Devil Music is available on LP/download now via We Are The Men/Sacred Bones, and is streaming below.
Speaking of Tournament, the rawk-n-rollers released their new EP Take The Wheel via Colonel Records in October. Also tracked live-to-tape by Jordan and mixed/mastered by me with the band at Doctor Wu’s, the EP is six songs of rowdy good-times. As Noisey put it: “there is nothing more true to the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll—as it was originally intended, that is—as playing your heart out in a garage as if it were a packed, smoke-filled arena.” Take The Wheel is available now on LP, cassette and download via Colonel Records, and is streaming below.
Shop Talk‘s self-titled debut was released on LP last fall as well. The group plays a kind of melodic, slightly twangy, classic “punk” – instantly recognizable yet completely its own thing. Kyle Keays-Hagerman tracked the band at his studio and I recorded the vocals and mixed/mastered it at Doctor Wu’s, wrapping it up back in 2015. The band (featuring members of Queening, Liturgy, and Pygmy Shrews) has done a couple tours and a bunch of local shows since then, and has been covered in The Deli and Brooklyn Vegan, so it’s awesome to see this get a proper pressing. Shop Talk is out now on Brainbox Records and is streaming below.
I worked with Operator Music Band on their debut full-length Puzzlephonics I & II in October. They’re a Brooklyn quartet who create electronic pop songs around relentless motorik grooves with tag-team male/female vocals. Dara Hirsch (one of the singer/guitarist/synth players) recorded the songs at Gravesend Recordings (in the Silent Barn), and we mixed and mastered it at Doctor Wu’s. The album will be out later this year on New Professor Music – in the meantime, take the opportunity to check out their single Materielmusik, go see them live (a real treat!), or pick up one of the pedals made by Jared Hiller (the other co-singer/guitarist/synth player) and his company L0/Rez…the Mona Lisa Overdrive is one of the most insane things I’ve plugged in!
In November, I mixed and mastered the new record by Tica Douglas, entitled Our Lady Star of the Sea, Help Us and Protect Us. Tica’s last record Joey was featured in Pitchfork, Impose, and other zines, and this new one was recorded by Ryan Dieringer (who co-produced Joey as well) in various locations upstate. I really admire the ambition of this record – which shifts from intimate, singer/songwriter moments to densely-packed arrangements featuring horns, synths, and a rocking band – and I had the songs stuck in my head for weeks. Our Lady Star of the Sea will be out later this year on Team Love Records.
I also mastered a few singles at the end of the year: The Tills’ “I Don’t Wanna Be Here Blues” (which has a killer video, and whose upcoming album Shannin I mastered last year as well), Dark Tea’s “Providence Sky” (a side project of Gary Canino of the band Rips – check the Impose feature and accompanying video too), and a pair of singles by Brian Chillemi and his band Junk Boys.
Video-wise: In and Out of Control, a short film by Emir Eralp featuring a score by Eaters, has continued to receive wide acclaaim, winning accolades in Istanbul, Berlin, London, and other festivals around the world. And Hospital Head Doctor – a short film by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate (of Marcel the Shell, Catherine, and other projects) which I sound-designed and mixed back in 2015 – was recently released and awarded a Vimeo Staff Pick. Watch it below.
Liturgy’s The Ark Work graced a number of year-end lists, topping both Rolling Stone‘s and Spin‘s Best Avant Records of 2015 lists. “The most ambitious art-rock statement of the year is an ecstatic jumble of disciplines, ideas and textures” (Rolling Stone) that “blurs boundaries between worlds that you wouldn’t have previously thought even shared a border” (Spin). The record also made Washington Post’s Best Music of 2015 (#8 – a “lavish sound-world out of guitar-generated turbulence, computer-generated brass and the muscle-generated rhythms of Greg Fox, one of the greatest drummers doing it”), Consequence of Sound’s Top Metal Albums (#13- “a transcendent achievement in that it is the audible equivalent of finally rising above all and reaching your final form”), Tiny Mix Tapes’ Favorite Music Releases (#48), and Spin’s Best Songs of 2015 (#77 for “Vitriol” – “out of black metal comes black gold”) . The Ark Work is unlike anything else out there – check out the centerpiece “Reign Array” below.
PC Worship dropped Basement Hysteria, the long-form EP follow-up to last year’s Social Rust, on Northern Spy in November. Justin once again wrote, recorded and arranged these songs with his band, and we mixed and mastered together at my place. It’s looser, freer, and rawer than Social Rust, but any long-time fan of the group will find much to enjoy here. Pitchfork gave it a 7.8, opining that “Here, rock’n’roll is a pirated vessel, steered unhurriedly toward doom.” Check out the EP in its entiriety below, or head over to Northern Spy to buy it on good, old-fashioned CD.
Parquet Courts also released a full-length EP recently, entitled Monastic Living, their first for Rough Trade. The recordings were from recent studio sessions and practice-space jams, edited and arranged by Austin Brown, and mixed and mastered by myself and Austin at Doctor Wu’s. This record’s a weird one – a mostly instrumental collage of the band stretching out into some new and uncharted territories. Reviews have been mixed across the board, but personally I love to see the band exploring different facets of their sound, and it’s got some of my favorite A. Savage cover art yet.
[Cease and Desist] DIY! (Cult Classics from the Post-Punk Era 1978-1982) – the compilation that was a target of Sony’s copyright lawyers – was released at the end of October on Optimo Music. Pitchfork wrote a comprehensive and complimentary review, rating it an 8.4. The whole thing is a must for fans of this era: the selection and sequencing by JD Twitch of Optimo is excellent and unique, and the liner notes and essay paint a vivid picture of the material on-hand. I’m thrilled to have been able to re-master and add “further audio love” to the compilation. Stream the sampler below and hang tight while they repress the record, or download the (slightly-edited) digital release if you simply can’t wait until then.
Brooklyn rockers Junk Boys (featuring members of Organs, MPHO, and Yin-Yangs) recently released their self-titled album. We recorded an EP in early 2015, and returned to Seaside Lounge this past summer to record the full-length, which both expands and refines the sound of the band. Impose says the songs “rip through attitudinal, turbocharged power-chord riffage, with crude, impassioned soloing, and incensed vocal howls”, premiering the song “Arizona Nights” last month. Check out the album below or on their Bandcamp page, and go see them around NYC and try to score a tape.
Holly Overton – singer and song-writer of MPHO and Juniper Rising – released a solo EP in November. We worked together to record and arrange the songs – breezy synth pop that fans of MPHO will enjoy – and I mixed and mastered it last fall. Check out the video Holly made for the song “Midnight Sun”, and stream the EP below.
One of my favorite projects to work on this past year is the new Turn to Crime record Secondary. I’ve gotten to know Derek and the band over the past couple years and love the music he’s been creating, but this is the best one yet. Super catchy and utterly bizarre, it’s an album full of singles beamed in from an alternate reality where new wave, kraut-rock and glam still rule the airwaves. Derek wrote and recorded the album at his Molten Sound studio, I mixed it, and Sarah Register mastered it at the Mastering Palace. I can’t wait for people to hear this record!
Another highlight of last year was mixing and mastering the new Cloud Becomes Your Hand record Rest in Fleas. It’s a wild, proggy ride of a record – alternately goofy and threatening, often in the same breath – stuffed full of unison leads, odd time-signatures, crazy synth noises, bells, whistles, kitchen sinks and more… it’s fantastic! Northern Spy is putting it out this spring – stay tuned.
I also recently mixed the debut full-length of the band Gold Dime – the new project from Andrya Ambro of Talk Normal, backed by Adam from the Dreebs and Lazar of Sediment Club. The album – recorded by Andrya and Justin Frye – is a heavy, heady slice of densely-arranged no-wave. Sarah Register was her bandmate in Talk Normal, and she’s mastering it now – I can’t wait to hear it in its full glory.
Jordan Bernstein (the other constant in the Dreebs and often-bassist in PC Worship) has a new project called Jordonna: trap beats, prepared guitar, rapping and singing by Jordan, with additional vocals by Heidi Beth Jaye and Kassie from Guerilla Toss. I mixed and mastered it with Jordan over the summer and fall, finishing it at Doctor Wu’s. It’s a total curve-ball of a project, really cool stuff. I look forward to seeing them play this live around NYC this spring.
Honey Radar is a great band from Philly, mining the best gems from lo-fi rock’s history… a little GBV here, a little Olivia Tremor Control there… They’re prolific and always interesting – just try not to get absorbed into their Bandcamp page! Plus, my old friend Jason Henn plays drums and records the group’s material, so it was a great pleasure to master their new record Blank Cartoon. Take a moment to go listen to 2014’s full-length Chain Smoking on Easter or any of their 3 EPs from 2015 to prepare yourself – Blank Cartoon drops this spring on What’s Your Rupture.
I always enjoy working with old friends on new projects, and it was no exception mixing the documentary film Up This Hill by Paul Sobota. The film follows a group of inner-city youths from Cleveland as they travel to rural southern Kentucky to repair and restore homes, shifting from one type of poverty to another, and learning a lot about themselves in the process. It was great to work with Paul and Ben Kinsley (who recorded and edited the sound), and I hope to see this moving little film making the rounds soon.
I also mixed a couple series of ads for the new TiVo Bolt, directed by Robin Comisar for Ghost Robot. You may have seen one from ‘Interruptus’ or ‘The Date’ somewhere. Robin’s got a great eye, and these ads are utterly silly… hope you enjoy.
Lots of cool stuff is already happening this month. If you should find yourself in the Providence/Pawtucket area, come see the art installation by Christopher Duffy and Eaters at Machines with Magnets, opening January 15th through February 7th. Thank you for reading, and please feel free to write if you’d like to talk about sound.
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!
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.
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!
Jonathan Schenke 