Tag: What’s Your Rupture

on

by

Light Up Gold by Parquet Courts came out 10 years ago today! Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan both ran features to celebrate the anniversary, as the band continues to tour the world behind their seventh record Sympathy For Life. Making this record with them was like capturing lighting in a bottle… we recorded everything in three days onto a Tascam 388 in their old practice space, and mixed & mastered it in my old apartment in even less time. “Stoned and Starving” was the first song we tracked, and I still remember getting chills as I heard them bash it out in the room around me, crossing my fingers that everything was actually recording correctly. Needless to say, it did work, and in ways we never could have expected. Light Up Gold is out on What’s Your Rupture.

on

by

Philadelphia basement-pop auteurs Honey Radar are back with Ruby Puff of Dust!  I’ve known Jason for years, have been a fan since he first handed me a CD-R of their debut Chain Smoking on Easter, and this new one certainly does not disappoint.  I mastered the new LP last year at Studio Windows, and it has already received glowing reviews from Allmusic (Editor’s Choice!), Brooklyn Vegan, The 13th Track, and more.  Ruby Puff of Dust is out now on What’s Your Rupture? – stream it below and pick it up on their Bandcamp.

on

by

Two records on which I worked were released for Record Store Day 2019!  Polaris Prize-nominated and Twin Peaks-appearing musician Alex Zhang Hungtai (fka Dirty Beaches) stars in and performed the score for the film August At Akiko’s.  The film, which Variety called “a charming, haunting Hawaiian reverie”, features a number of scenes where Alex performs in an old music hall, the performances of which form the basis of the “textured, head-filling score”.  Each of the compositions were recorded live by Tom Visser, and I mixed/mastered the collection this past winter at Studio Windows.  August at Akiko’s OST is available now on LP and digitally through Factory25.

RSD 2019 also saw the long-overdue release of Brett Smiley’s Sunset Tower.  From the press release: “In 1974 Brett Smiley was given $200,000 to record a Glam Rock Epic with Andrew Loog Oldham, based on a demo reel and a polaroid. Sunset Tower is your first chance to hear the Del Shannon-produced demos recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles CA, coupled with demos and acetate recordings”  I restored and remastered these recordings years ago, but the release of the album was delayed by Brett’s death in 2016.  It’s a treat to have this collection out in the world via What’s Your Rupture – pick your copy up while you can!

on

by

 

Endless Scroll, the debut album by NYC art-punk quintet Bodega, is out now on What’s Your Rupture.  The album has already met wide-spread acclaim, from BBC6 playing the record in its entirety and naming it Album of the Day, to Rough Trade naming it Album of the Month, to glowing reviews in DIY (5/5 “Streamlined and minimal but bursting with intelligence, humour and ideas, BODEGA are the real deal.”), Village Voice (“the summer’s ultimate Brooklyn band”) , NME (4/5,  The Independent (4/5, “It’s a fantastic debut from one of the most exciting new bands around”), and many more.  It’s a pleasure to see so many people so excited about the band and this album, and I’m proud to have helped bring it to fruition.  Pick up your copy now and stream it below.

on

by

Fresh off their EU tour, Bodega have released their latest single “Gyrate” off their upcoming debut Endless Scroll (which I mixed, mastered, and helped to record).  I’m also playing with Bodega, as part of Pill/Eaters (an improv collaborative group featuring members of Pill and Eaters, duh), at Sunnyvale on June 1.  While the official release of their LP has been pushed back, they will have copies at the show, which also features the awesome new dance-punk quartet Public Practice.  Endless Scroll is now out July 6 via What’s Your Rupture.

on

by

“Jack in Titanic”, the latest single from Bodega’s upcoming album Endless Scroll, is out now. Pitchfork, Paste, DIY Mag, Brooklyn Vegan and others covered the song, the third single from the debut LP.  I mixed, mastered, and helped record Endless Scroll, which was produced and recorded by Austin Brown of Parquet Courts.  Endless Scroll comes out June 1 via What’s Your Rupture… in the meantime, check out Bodega in a city near you.

on

by

NYC’s post-punk quintet Bodega premiered “How Did This Happen?!”, which was featured on Brooklyn Vegan, Northern Transmissions, DIY Mag, and Clash.  “How?!” is the first single from their debut album Endless Scroll, produced and recorded by Austin Brown (of Parquet Courts), and mixed/mastered by me at Doctor Wu’s.  Endless Scroll is out June 1 on What’s Your Rupture; in the meantime, catch the band at SXSW, around NYC, and in Europe this spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

on

by

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!

on

by

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!!