Podcast

Happy New Year and welcome to season nine of the Tape Op Podcast!
For this episode, we welcome Yves Jarvis, the moniker of Canadian musician Jean-Sébastien Yves Jarvis. His latest release, All Cylinders, won Canada’s Polaris Music Prize for best album of 2025, a record on which Jarvis wrote and performed all of the 16 tracks. Made entirely using Audacity and a half-broken laptop, the collection showcases his love of ‘60s and ‘70s classic rock, soul, and folk music, but it also shines a light on his post-modern approach to music making. Geoff Stanfield caught up with Yves from his home studio in Montreal for this engaging, and often philosophical, conversation. Enjoy!

Since 2006, the Portland, Oregon-based Portugal.The Man have released ten full length studio albums and various EPs. Their 2017 song, “Feel it Still,” garnered them a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, but that might put them into a musical category in your mind that would be way off base. The band’s singer, frontman, and principal songwriter, John Gourley, is on what seems a mission to never rest on what he’s done before, continuing to push his music into new realms. Portugal.The Man’s latest album, Shish, is a wild-ride tapestry of pop music infused with metal, noise, punk, and electronica. His co-producer, engineer, and drummer on the project, Kane Richotte, holed-up with Gourley at the band’s studio outside of Portland, and made one of the most interesting records we have heard this year. Geoff Stanfield caught up with John and Kane while they were out on tour, to discuss the making of Shish, the band’s previous work with producers Jeff Bhasker [Tape Op #130], Danger Mouse, Mike D, and John Hill, and letting mixers like John Congleton [#81] and Andy Wallace [#25] do their thing. Enjoy!

Eric Sarafin, first interviewed in Tape Op #34 in 2003, is a producer, engineer, and mixer, known for his work with artists such as Ben Harper, The Pharcyde, Jeff Lorber, Tone Loc, Barenaked Ladies, Amy Grant, and even Foreigner. Eric is also known as Mixerman, the name he used as he chronicled the events of a somewhat fictional album session in Los Angeles as The Daily Adventures of Mixerman, now available in book and podcast form. His following books, like Zen and the Art of MIXING, were very helpful, and his recent tome, Mixerman’s Ultimate Guide to PRODUCING Records, Music & Songs, is a nearly 600 page bundle of advice anyone making music should read. We had a nice chat, so enjoy!

With their latest album, is, My Morning Jacket handed over the production reins to storied producer Brendan O'Brien, who has worked with artists ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Pearl Jam. The result of this collaboration is a focused collection of songs that showcases the band's development and musical diversity. Geoff Stanfield caught up with My Morning Jacket’s frontman and principal songwriter, Jim James, and Brendan to discuss the making of this stellar release.

Enjoy!

Lord Huron first caught our ear with their 2012 release, Lonesome Dreams. The album's lush presentation, harmonies, and tinges of surfy guitars made it both  decidedly West Coast-sounding and, at the same time, otherworldly. Over a decade on, the band has released its fifth album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, another fully-formed concept album of sorts that, like all of Lord Huron's releases, tells a story, is beautifully produced, recorded and mixed, and is another step forward in the band's development. Geoff Stanfield caught up with founder, songwriter, guitarist, and frontman Ben Schneider to discuss the new album, their Whispering Pines recording studio, and more. Enjoy!

A handful of years ago, I was interviewed for a book about recording equipment and how we interact with it. That book, Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies [Tape Op #168], is out now via MIT Press, and I gathered up its authors, Eliot Bates & Samantha Bennett, to discuss the origins of this study, what they learned along the way, and what people's relationships to recording gear might be in the future. Enjoy!
-LC