These are both widely available CDs on major labels that are amazingly creative. Radiohead continue their recording relationship with Nigel Godrich (and his magic boxes), this time laying a lot of groundwork rather quickly at Ocean Way and fine-tuning at their own studio. Darrell Thorp (who...
They haven't made too many records since their early '90s reunion, and I was always suspicious of how they might stand next to the classics. Well, this new CD surprised me a lot. Produced by current bassist Tony Barber and recorded by Harvey Birrell at Southern Studios in London, this...
What do you do when your buddy no longer wants to make music? If you're Off Records you put out his CD! Goldcard is Charlie Campbell who used to be in Pond, a Portland band that had some bright moments. Here are tracks from sessions in studios, or at Quasi's house, or with Grandaddy, some...
Joe Chiccarelli is a great pal of ours at Tape Op, so we keep an eye out for work he does (although I was too scared to listen to the Elton John record he worked on...) So here I open up this Clem Snide CD, and Joe's name is spelled wrong. So I check some American Music Club records he worked...
I wonder how many different copies of this record I've bought over the years. I think three vinyl and three on CD now. This is a multi- layer CD, with a remastered regular CD version that sounds great, plus a SACD version and 5.1 SACD Surround Sound Mix. The 5.1 won't play on normal home...
Beauty Pill, despite member Chad Clark being a studio denizen of note in the D.C. area, isn't a prolific band - having released only two EPs in the last three years. It's also interesting that their debut, The Cigarette Girl From The Future, was a sonic multitrack whirlwind, whereas this...
Wally Gagel spent many years engineering at Boston's Fort Apache Studio, working on many cool records with bands like Belly, Sebadoh, Old 97's, and Pell Mell. Now he lives in L.A. and has a home studio called Bliss, where he did most of this record, while keeping a day gig producing all...
Remember the interview with New Zealand's David Kilgour a while back? This is what all the fuss is about. The two disc set starts with their early singles and EPs, 4-track heaven of grinding pop songs with huge hooks, much of it duplicating the Compilation record. This is one of the bands that...
Full-bore, crunchy one-man-band home-recorded (Kennedy Space Station) masterpiece. He used one Audio-Technica stereo condenser mic and three SM57s through a Tascam M108 board through a 20-bit Layla converter to a 400 MHz Pentium II PC onto Vegas Video (!) for the basic tracking, with some drums...
Dr. Stefan Helmreich recorded the rhythmic sounds of photocopy machines on a Realistic Minisette-20, manipulating the sounds in an Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus. The songs have titles like "Xerox 5828". This record is a trip, and far more interesting than one might imagine, as the copier sounds...
Speaking of Tone, one of their previous CDs was produced by Robert Poss, guitar genius, drone meister and ex- Band of Susans member. Here's some stuff from live performances and his well- equipped home studio, Trace Elements. Robert is the master of treated and manipulated guitars, along with...
Bruce Licher and company deliver another fine instrumental album, this time with more electronics and fuzzier guitars in the fore than before. Harold Budd makes a guest appearance with spacey piano on "Under a Wing". A great album to listen to when it's dark. Basics recorded at...