Fievel Is Glauque New Album: Rong Weicknes
by Sam Retzer
Zach begins our chat by proudly displaying the $10 mono Marantz recorder he used to record their debut, God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess. With a Samson C02 condenser mic loosely pointed at the band, Zach used the “Beatles trick” of adding a dynamic mic from the PA and mixing down to mono, often at half speed to preserve batteries. For the follow-up, Flaming Swords, the band upped the stakes by heading to La Savonnerie Studio in Brussels with engineer/studio founder, Daniel Bleikolm, and knocked out an incredibly detailed and dynamic recording in one day. Before the session, saxophonist Johannes Eimermacher and Zach met to “comp-rovise” (writing out contrapuntal lines and improvisation sections).
For the new album, Rong Weicknes, Zach and Ma continued their formula of writing songs together at the piano, while Zach would further experiment with chord voicings. Engineer Steve Vealey helmed the sessions at the Outlier Inn in Woodridge, NY, with all eight musicians recording the album over four days. Many of the Rong Weicknes takes were captured within the first two days, leaving time to experiment at the studio retreat. Inspired by The Clash recording full band overdubs on “The Card Cheat,” the band recorded “in triplicate,” starting with a relatively faithful overdub, followed by a third more improvisational take. Using a $15 copy of Harrison Audio’s Mixbus software, Zach imported stereo stems pre-mixed by Steve, and applied automation in a “slapdash way with reckless gestures” to every track on the album. The Mixbus edits were sent back to Steve who was encouraged to lean into the “wrong elements” creating wild layers of sound in “Hover” and “Kayfabe” in particular.
Zach sees Rong Weicknes as messy, overwhelming, and super dynamic, due to his ability to automate key moments within the tripled takes. Towards the end of “Love Weapon,” the entire mix momentarily disintegrates, an “interruption” in sound requested by Zach. For every “mistake” that Steve fixed in Zach’s edits, he’d be asked to make a new “mistake” to balance it out. Rong Weicknes is a major headphone experience, possibly due to Zach’s preference for wearing cans during late-night Brooklyn apartment sessions. He’s been up all night lately, working on his latest record and recording into Audacity with his laptop mic. Although he’s a major tape head with his Tascam 424 Portastudio by his side, Zach feels that these “crappy” ways of working will “furnish you with the proof that you need to be doing it.” Rong Weicknes does it right.
Rong Wreicknes is out now on Fat Possum records.
Sam thanks Zach for turning him on to newhitech.net, who fixed his Tascam 424 Portastudio.
