Artist/Recordists

Artists who engineer their own records.

Ian MacKaye

Artist/Recordists

Ian MacKaye

NO. 138

BY IAN BRENNAN

Ian MacKaye and I have been friends for over 20 years, ever since I convinced him and the band he was in, Fugazi, to come and play at the "Food Not Bombs" 20th anniversary free show in San Francisco (with Sleater-Kinney and the late Vic Chesnutt). The band's only concern with trekking across the country for the show was whether anyone would actually show up. Police ultimately estimated the crowd to be around 15,000 people; the largest audience the band ever played for. Fugazi was arguably one of the only successfully DIY bands to have stuck to their guns and never sold out. Relatedly, Dischord Records – the imprint Ian and Jeff Nelson founded in 1980 to release recordings by their band, The Teen Idles (and soon after, Minor Threat) – is more than just an important "punk" label. It is one of the most focused and curated independent record companies of all time, and deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as important American record labels like Chess, Sun, Sugar Hill, and Arhoolie.

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More in this Collection

Taylor Deupree
Artist/Recordists | NO. 126

Taylor Deupree

BY JOSEPH BRANCIFORTE

I still remember my first experience hearing Taylor Deupree's Northern on a winter night back in 2007. Reaching into a stack of borrowed CDs in my apartment, I randomly selected a disc for some musical accompaniment while washing the dishes. The albu...

Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Artist/Recordists | NO. 109

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

BY LARRY CRANE

[ image far-1 type=fullcenter ] It's the dream of many home recordists, but for Ruban Nielson it actually happened. He recorded some songs at home for fun, posted them online, and a buzz started around them — leading to record labels, tours, and albu...

Temples
Artist/Recordists | NO. 107

Temples

BY ALEX MAIOLO

Psych Pop has been enjoying a healthy resurgence. The loudest shots from the latest wave were fired by Tame Impala when they released Innerspeaker in 2010, soon becoming one of the biggest indie acts in the world. Whether due to interstellar grokking...

No Image
Artist/Recordists | NO. 95

Tame Impala

BY ALEX MAIOLO

Australia's Tame Impala, led by Kevin Parker, have taken the classic psychedelic sounds of Cream and "The White Album" era Beatles, combining them with elements that can only exist in the modern age. Their debut, 2010's Innerspeaker, was celebrated b...

Merrill Garbus
Artist/Recordists | NO. 88

Merrill Garbus

BY ELI CREWS

Merrill Garbus is the founder and central figure of tUnE-yArDs, an extraordinary band that I have had the honor of traveling with over the past year in support of their fantastic album w h o k i l l (4AD), which I also recorded and mixed. The album m...

Jack White III
Artist/Recordists | NO. 82

Jack White III

BY LARRY CRANE

As a member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather and the Rome project (with Danger Mouse, Norah Jones and Daniele Luppi [Tape Op #40]), Jack White III has certainly proved himself as a songwriter, singer, performer and musician. ...

Moby
Artist/Recordists | NO. 73

Moby

BY ALEX MCKENZIE

Moby's apartment in Little Italy is simple, clean and economical. Framed gold records adorn one large wall, with the only other décor of mention being a well-organized, sizeable collection of vintage keyboards and synthesizers. His furniture and fixt...

Sufjan Stevens
Artist/Recordists | NO. 70

Sufjan Stevens

BY RAFTER ROBERTS

Sufjan Stevens is awesome and punk. You might not know it by listening to his albums — they're feats of orchestration, arrangement and craft that have the power to sweep you right the eff up in a majestic way, but he's a total recording rebel, Tape O...

E of The Eels
Artist/Recordists | NO. 65

E of The Eels

BY LARRY CRANE

Mark Oliver Everett is the one constant behind the Eels, an L.A.-based "group" that's been releasing record since 1996. His work always carried a "studio savvy" sheen to my ears, so when I heard there were a couple of compilation albums coming out I ...

Deerhoof
Artist/Recordists | NO. 55

Deerhoof

BY JEFF BYRON

"This is a good story to start a Tape Op interview," Chris Cohen of Deerhoof tells us as we press record on the tape recorder. "I just learned yesterday that you can use inserts in Pro Tools Free. Up until now, every time we'd do an edit or EQ someth...

The Shins
Artist/Recordists | NO. 39

The Shins

BY KYLE SHEAFFER

The Shins debut album, Oh, Inverted World, is a testament to the power of home recording. A band with great songs captures those songs using the gear they can afford and manipulates the recording process to turn technical limitations to their advanta...

Stephin Merritt
Artist/Recordists | NO. 38

Stephin Merritt

BY MARC GARTMAN

Stephin Merritt is the mastermind behind the music of The Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes. He is also one of the most important and influential songwriters in recent history. His lyrical confidence is apparent, s...

Jason Falkner
Artist/Recordists | NO. 35

Jason Falkner

BY LARRY CRANE

He's been a member of The Three O'Clock, Jellyfish and The Grays. His voice and instrumentation appear on albums by Beck, Susanna Hoffs, Eric Matthews, Aimee Mann, and Air. He co-wrote, produced, and performed on many of the songs on Brendan Benson's...

Spoon
Artist/Recordists | NO. 27

Spoon

BY CRAIG SCHUMACHER

Spoon are a great band from Austin, Texas. When I heard their first record, Telephono, in 1996, I was impressed with their songs and also the full, rocking, immediate sound of the record — as captured by engineer-supreme, John Croslin, on a 1" 8 trac...

Ween
Artist/Recordists | NO. 17

Ween

BY CURTIS SETTINO

Ween gets away with murder. It is one of the few bands that writes, records, and releases exactly what it wants. The group's songs can be daring, funny, offensive, and tender. Composed of Mickey Melchiondo (aka Dean Ween) and Aaron Freeman (aka Gene ...

Elliott Smith
Artist/Recordists | NO. 4

Elliott Smith

BY LARRY CRANE

It was, strangely, a sunny day in the middle of a Portland winter when I came by to pry Elliott out of a studio/office space (actually, it's a room off the side of the Undercover Inc. office) where he was working on "leftovers" from his 3rd solo albu...