Music Reviews

Some people try to use bouncing to squeeze a lot of tracks onto a 4-track recording, to simulate a live band using overdubs. There's even an album called Made on a Teac that explains how to bounce 12 tracks down to 4. On his first solo release, Port Chalmers, New Zealand resident Brian Crook

The Sick Bees are a guitar/vocal and drums duo (with a dash of clarinet and keyboards to keep it spicy) that sounds like the polar opposite of the Spinanes. In fact, their approach is more in tune with early 80's artpunk like The Birthday Party or Richard Edson era Sonic Youth. Sick Bees do,

Some of you might remember a band called Sidecar and their frightening studio horror stories in issue #3 of Tape Op. Sidecar, due to someone else using the name, has now become Poolside, and they have a fine new album out as well. And guess what, when I was in Los Angeles (March 1998) checking out

As you may have read about in the J. Christian Quick interview elsewhere in this issue, this album was recorded at Stillness Sound Facility on a 16 track 1" recorder in the old house that is Stillness. In the interview, Christian mentions Mark Robinson's [guitar/vocal/producer] idea of

I'm told most of this record was tracked in a basement in Seattle on 1/2" 8 track by David Bazan, who wrote, sang, drummed and guitared all the songs. They are, for the most part, subdued melodic songs with sparse, simple arrangements. The recording is very impressive with great guitar

In the liner notes of this CD reissue, John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats argues against calling these old recordings "demos", because they're wonderful and fit for release. Of course, he's right, which is hardly a surprise. Looking a bit further into Darnielle's

Their musicianship and songwriting continue to grow, and although the music has moved further into the pop realm, they haven't forgot- ten their punk roots. Roger Mountenot [known for his work with Yo La Tengo and Lou Reed] and Kip Beelman recorded this bad boy at Avast [in Seattle]. The sound

When I first got this CD I gave it a few listens and dug the band's spazz-jazz Beefheart meets Minutemen compositions. Admittedly, I didn't pay a lot of attention to the lyrics expressed figuring the gender politics to be an important issue to James (the vocalist), but not crucial to

There's several ways to run a commercial studio. You can be outspoken, you can be highly visible on the local "scene" or you can quietly stay in and do some great work. In Portland, I sometimes feel that there's a misconception that my Jackpot! Recordings is the only game in

When people talk to me about movies, I mention that I follow directors and rarely pay attention to actors. When it comes to records though, I don't think I'd pick music based on who "produced" it. Much of the time, production is just a job, and if you look at the body of work of

The first thing I noticed about this CD is that it is short. Less than 32 minutes, and that made me wonder. Would I know if it was on vinyl? Between flipping the sides and not having a digital counter that shows the absolute time, would I know or care? CDs allow 74 minutes (or more) of material and