This was posted over at Brooklyn Vegan too, but who reads that old thing?
1. Total Fest
2. Yashicamat 124G
3. Sharkbite Studios, Oakland CA
4. Northern California camping
5. Finishing tour with “Hole in the Sky”, with Stavros from Atlas Moth on vox
6. Jon Howell
7. Every recording session I got to do this year
8. fastmail.fm
9. Peavey customer service
10. Ninkasi Brewing Company
With Bandcamp links where applicable. (Seven out of eleven current bands, by the way.) I like Bandcamp a lot.
Young Widows – In And Out Of Youth And Lightness
No contest, my favorite of the year. This record is incredible. Songs, performances, tones, recording, everything.
True Widow – As High As The Highest… and INO
Their first record dug a hole; these two crawled into it. I don’t know what that means but it sounds right. One of the few bands I hear and wish I was in that band.
Batillus – Furnace
Watching these guys play most of this record every night for two weeks = great. Watching people get knocked on their ass by the start of that first song = really great.
ME & LP – Chez Raymond
Super nice. I could listen to Lisa Papineau sing the dictionary.
Northless – Clandestine Abuse
Fuck my face, this record is enormous and heavy and hooky and awesome.
Whores – Ruiner
Perfect modern take on 90s drop-D riffage. Great recording too.
Paul McCartney – Ram
How did I never hear this record before? How was this made in 1971?
Cellos – Bomb Shelter
Am I just a sucker for Canadian noise rock? I stumbled on this on bandcamp a few weeks ago and I just keep listening to it.
Cartographer – Hats, Capes, Dark Arts
I shouldn’t list this since I recorded it and they’re buddies, but I genuinely love this record. Shellac-inspired aluminum guitar smart-assery.
KEN Mode – Venerable
I have loved KEN Mode for years. When this record is on, it is fucking ON. There is no other band doing what these guys do.
Mongoloid Village – Folly
Excellent weird rocking. Parts after parts after parts, but it works. These guys are allowed to name drop King Crimson; your shitty band isn’t.
Burmese – Lun Yurn
Batshit / awesome.
(There’s a shorter version of this on the Tape Op blog.)
I’ve recorded a lot of very loud bands — including my own — in cramped practice spaces, using a mobile rig that I bring in for tracking. It’s a challenge, but it’s kind of cool. And laptops have gotten powerful enough that even older ones can loaf through a 16- or 24-input session.
But a few years ago I started getting bit by a nasty problem: intermittently, my DAW (Cubase) wouldn’t stay in record for more than a few minutes. A few minutes into a take, Cubase’s hard drive performance meter would freak out, then I’d see a “Too many tracks recording” dialog as recording stopped. This is the Nuendo version of the same dialog, but you get the point:
This really rattled me — how can you focus on what matters if you’re always worried about your recorder failing? — and it was hard to track down the cause. I had upgraded some hardware and software on my laptop, and the problem was very intermittent. But it always seemed to happen during real takes (ugh).
Chris Owens – My interview with Chris is in this month’s Tape Op. Thanks to Nick Thieneman for the photography.
Joe 4 – The aluminum guitars are strong with this one. I mixed an EP called Enola Gay which will be out any day now is on bandcamp, and 10″ vinyl. They tracked at Kramasonik in Croatia. I also mixed a song (tracked elsewhere) for the PRF Singles Club.
Generalissimo – We just finished five songs for a few splits and seven-inches. No, they didn’t wear the uniforms in the studio, but they did maintain an admirable work ethic. We tracked at Sharkbite.