The last six months (or so)….
It’s been a busy year, so much so that I’ve been neglecting my website! But, finally catching up, here are some of the exciting work things I’ve been up to, or have been released in the past six months:
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Terminal Orchestra “Fiver’s Plan”
The Terminal Orchestra record I tracked two years ago in a rural Upper Michigan church is almost done! Terminal Orchestra’s chief composer and organizer Jesse DeCaire has been hard at work on overdubs and mixing at his studio in Michigan, adding layers and complexity to an already dense record. I’m really excited for this one. Jesse posted a preview of one of the tracks recently:
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5.15:: Chris Marshall & The August Light Video Release
My good friend Chris Marshall has finished his new record, and released a video for “Feel Like Running,” the first song from it. Produced by Radiation City’s Patti King, We tracked a good portion of the songs from the record over at Type Foundry January 2014. Overdubs were done at Radiation City’s basement studio, Studio G. Rian Lewis did the mixing. This is the fourth record I’ve worked on with Chris, and I think it’s his best one yet.
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5.15:: Catherine Lee/Matt Hannafin – Five Shapes CD
The percussion/oboe improv record I recorded and mixed last year was finally released in May. Recorded live in the concert hall at Williamette University, Salem, Oregon. I loved working in that concert hall….so much natural reverb….
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6.15:: Colleen Oregon Mini-tour
My friends Andrew (Beacon Sound) and Peter Broderick hosted French musician Cécile Schott, aka Colleen, on a small three-show Portland area tour. I did sound for all of the shows on the tour.
This was Cécile’s second time in the U.S, and first in the Pacific Northwest, and a very special introduction to our neck of the woods. The three shows were at The Sou’wester (with Peter Broderick) up on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, Holocene (with Rauellson and Brumes), and an intimate show/Q&A at Beacon Sound. As a long time fan of Cécile’s work, I feel very lucky to have been a part of it.
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6.15-9.15:: Cherimoya LP
This fall I finished up the debut LP by Portland’s instrumental afrobeat/funk/rock octet Cherimoya. They’re a great band, as well as great people, and I feel fortunate to have worked on this with them. We tracked the album this summer at Type Foundry, and mixed next door over at Mix Foundry.
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7.15:: Derek Hunter Wilson Lp
This summer I finished mixing the beautiful, lush modern classical record by my friend Derek. It is due out on Beacon Sound on LP and cassette sometime in the near future. We did most of the tracking over at Buzz or Howl Studios, back in the Spring, and mixing happened over at Type Foundry.
In the process of making this record, Derek and his friend, harpist Joshua Ward, also did a day of improv in the studio, and have since made this project official. Its called Invisible City, and they’ve recently been playing shows. Here’s an example of what they do:
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8.15:: Pickathon Festival and Channels
This year was my third year as co-crew chief of multi-track recording and broadcast mixing at Pickathon. As always, it was a whirlwind week of work during and surrounding the festival. We had some great engineers working with us this year, a couple new and most returning, including: Pat Kearns, Josh Powell, Paul Laxer, Collin Hegna, Saaela Abrams, Jef Simmons, and Graham Nystrom. Each year we have 6 recording systems covering over 100 sets at 7 stages…no small feat.
Now in the off season, my colleague Nalin Silva and I have been remixing songs each month for internet release. Here are a few I worked on that recently came out:
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9.15:: Livewire Radio @ Bumbershoot and beyond
In early September, I was up in Seattle for a few days live recording three episodes of Portland-based Livewire Radio variety show. Since then, I’ve been working with producer Jim Brunberg on mixing this season’s episodes, recorded at Revolution Hall and the Aladdin Theater. The show is available online, and also broadcast weekly on various NPR stations around the country.
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9.15:: Holcombe Waller’s Requiem Mass for TBA Festival
I spent a few days this September recording Holcombe Waller’s performance for PICA’s Time-Based Arts Festival. This piece was commissioned by PICA for the festival and is described as a “ceremonial choral work that deeply explores contemporary faith, advocacy through art, and collective catharsis. Performed in historic Trinity Episcopal Cathedral with an all-abilities community choir drawn from all walks of life towards the project’s mission, Requiem Mass is an emotional and personal work invoking remembrance and peace for the dead who have suffered persecution for their sexual orientation or gender expression. Requiem Mass was additionally informed by research into the pivotal gay history from the 1980s through present day and by community engagement that has included working with experts in liturgical music, queer theory, faith-based equality initiatives as well as over 100 participants in a series of choral workshops with Waller over the past year.” It was a truly immense and touching piece of work, with over 50 performers and an 8-piece band, incorporating the church’s massive pipe organ.
Some videos from the performance & recording are here:
and here:
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9.15 & 11.15:: Portland Cello Project @ Sound Summit Festival, Mill Valley, CA
In September I took a short trip down to the North Bay area in California to do sound for the Cello Project at a festival up in Tamalpais State Park. This was the view:
I was and will be out with them again this fall for another handful of shows in the Southwest and Northwest:
- November 5, 2015 Flagstaff, AZ | Coconino Center for the Arts
- November 6, 2015 Mesa, AZ | Mesa Arts Center
- November 7, 2015 Santa Fe, NM | SkyLight
- November 8, 2015 Albuquerque, NM | Simms Center
- November 29, 2015 Bend, OR | Tower Theatre
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9.15:: Girls In Trouble – Open The Ground Release
The Girls In Trouble record I recorded last summer is finally out! Recorded by me at Type Foundry and mixed by Karl Blau up in Anacortes. Girls in Trouble is primarily musician Alicia Jo Rabins and her partner Aaron Hartman (Old Time Relijun), but also features Sara Lund (Unwound/Hungry Ghost), Ralph Youtz (Built to Spill/Halo Benders), Mike Clark (Steve Malkmus & The Jicks), and Collette Alexander (Jens Lekman) on this record.
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10.15:: Marriage & Cancer – Killjoy 7″ EP
Portland band Marriage & Cancer had me in to their basement studio, Frawg Pond, late summer to help engineer some new songs for an EP and upcoming LP. The first couple of them came out in October on Dirt Cult Records:
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11.15:: Live SET Session 2
In November, Nalin Silva and I started our second series of Live SET classes, commissioned by Young Audiences of Oregon and Southwest Washington. For this run of classes, we have 12 students from all around the Portland area. Once again, our classroom is Mississippi Studios. We have a great lineup of bands to sound check, and guest speakers including Chris Funk (The Decemberists/Black Prairie), Katherine Paul (Genders/Mississippi Studios), Kyle Morton (Typhoon/Mississippi Studios), Joe Zavaglia (State of Sound/Pickathon/Touring FOH Engineer), Sama Dams and Months.
Our final show, which our students will run sound for, happens at Mississippi Studios on December 5th. There will be 4 musical acts including The Lower 48, Karma Rivera, Luz Elena Mendoza (Y La Bamba/Tiburones), and Hutch Harris (The Thermals). It is all-ages and free!
