Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
January 27, 2011, 16:12 -05 by chris
Filed Under: Blog, Studio [0] Comments
We’re both anxiously awaiting the debut album from Mirrors, which, rather torturously, isn’t out until the very last day of February. Appropriately chosen as the opener for OMD’s recent reunion tour, they somehow manage to pull off nattily-attired electronic pop that marries arrangements reminiscent of Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, or Chameleons with a four-part Kraftwerk-style lineup of electronic drums / synths / synths / synths, sometimes implying that there’s a guitarist in the band until you listen closely, and find none. Plus they stand all in a row and wear suits and blog about literature and art and manage to appear stylish and sophisticated and geeky and awkward all at the same time. And they seem to be on the verge of cracking up and breaking into laughter just beneath the Very Serious Deadpan Electronic Musicians facade – unlike, say, Interpol, there seems to be a bit of a wink and a nod behind the ties and haircuts. It’s just endearing.
Recently hauled a pair of Ampex 351s, a pair of Dolby A301s, some Metro shelving, and some ASC Tube Traps into the room, and rearranged things a bit.
Now to dig up the appropriate rare / obsolete / vintage power cables (an obsolete type of Hubbell connector for the former, the old British 1950s-1960s toaster/electric kettle but three pin, as found on vintage Hewlett Packard test equipment for the latter), and borrow a variac to “bring ’em up slowly” to find out how much more restoration work we’re getting ourselves into here.
In order to get things rolling a little more efficiently (the working album title “Artifacts” is becoming a bit of an unfortunate in-joke at this point) we’re going to try a bit of an assembly-line division of labor, starting with this evening’s session, in which we hope to spend the majority of the hours when we’re physically in the same room actually tracking, after which Garrick gets sent home with the resulting audio files to edit, arrange, and comp, and I work on mixes and mix revisions of songs that are at that stage.
Reading the new-ish Mixerman “Zen and the Art of Mixing” book, whenever I can manage to get in a chapter here or there before falling asleep in the evenings. Very highly recommended if you’re in the narrow subset of humans who 1) still read books and 2) are actually interested in what boils down to a self-help book about knob-turning.
And there’s another remix gig or two to fit in amongst it all, as well.
Also, life.
“It is not enough to be busy.”
Well, thanks for nothing, Mr. Thoreau.