Article EQ Magazine February 2010 Link After a season spent playing songs from their woozy, soaring debut, All Hours Cymbal, at outdoor festivals, Brooklyn’s Yeasayer wanted to record a sophomore album that was bold enough for the big stage. Odd Blood [Secretly Canadian], the result of a stretched-out yet deliberate recording process, reflects the band’s […]
Article EQ January 2010 Link When San Francisco guitarist and singer Chuck Prophet set out to record ¡Let Freedom Ring! [Yep Roc] last spring, he assumed a change of environment, specifically Mexico City, would inspire him and add some manic energy to the album. He didn’t count on periodic power outages ruining takes at Estudio […]
Feature EQ Magazine December 2009 Link Oliver Ackermann’s mixing advice— “It’s all about listening and figuring out what sounds good”—might sound funny coming from a vocalist/guitarist known for working at such a punishing volume. That’s not just hyperbole. When Ackermann and his A Place to Bury Strangers bandmates Jay Space (drums) and Jono Mofo (bass) […]
Feature EQ Magazine June 2009 Link Somber French poets and friendly prostitutes sound like fitting inspirations for a raucous, balls-out rock album. While these characters were part of the neighborhood color near the studio where chic French foursome Phoenix—comprised of Thomas Mars, Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, and Deck D’Arcy—recorded the bulk of Wolfgang Amadeus […]
Feature EQ Magazine November 2009 Link “Chameleon,” from the Maps album Turning the Mind, begins with flittering synths and syrupy layers of Roland Juno-G melodies, a common feature of James Chapman’s airy, escapist music. But the words sung by Chapman—those of Marsha M. Linehan, a professor and proponent of a cognitive therapy system called Mindfulness— […]
Article EQ September 2009 Link Only one sample appears on Temporary Pleasure: Todd Rundgren triumphantly singing “I was born to synthesize” on top of churning layers of modular synthesizer melodies. As far as statements of purpose go, it’s a fitting one for Jas Shaw and James Ford of British duo Simian Mobile Disco. Their 2007 […]