In the recording world Joe Chiccarelli is very well known. He got his big firÌ break engineering Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti, which turned out to be a big seller, and now he's respected for...
When we interviewed J. Robbins in issue #13 of Tape Op he told us we should interview John Agnello, a producer he had worked with in Jawbox and Burning Airlines. We countered with, "Why don't you...
David Barbe is no less than a living legend in Athens, Georgia. Coming from the 'old school' Athens (and still being of sound mind to remember most of it), he is known for any one of a number of...
The first time I heard Jeremy Enigk's "Return of the Frog Queen" I was absolutely floored. I think it was "Explain" that keyed me into his very idiosyncratic and original vision; the acoustic...
The Eighties were a strange time of change for recording practices and for bands. Studios went from the extreme isolation of instruments and drums that were favored in the Seventies to the use of...
In theory, the proliferation of low cost multi-track recording devices has democratized the recording process and put these tools into the hands of many people who previously didn't have access to...
In 1995, I had my first opportunity to try a musical experiment I'd been concocting in my head for a good 10 years. In short, the idea was merely to record some improvised music. In long, it's been...
We've all had this happen to us. We've heard a record or a song that really hits home. At the time we may not have known why or how or what it meant to us. We only knew that it marked the time. This...
How do you want to go down in history? For many of us, all that most people will know of us when we're gone will be our names listed on some records, CDs and such. How do you wish to be seen in...
It is not uncommon for someone with access to limited resources to use home stereo speakers for monitoring. I found it interesting, though, when I learned how many recording studios with other...
Many albums come out each year documenting collaborations between giants in the worlds of avant garde jazz and improvised music. It's all but impossible to afford to own all of them, and would...
With the introduction of 8 track recording in the mid-1960's, enough tracks were available to record a song as separate parts instead of needing to have everyone play at once. With records such as...
Phill Brown, in issue #12, talked with us about his recording styles while he was in the middle of making this record, and it's a great example of his work. With his Talk Talk/Mark Hollis work the...
Pete Ham was a member of Badfinger and this is the second collection of "demo" songs that he recorded at home, in the late '60s and early '70s, on a sound-on-sound Revox 1/4" reel deck. The curious...
When Chris Thomson spews out "what this town needs is some rock- rock" on the opening track of Skull Kontrol's debut EP, he truly means it. After serving time in such avant punk outfits as Circus...
I love keyboards, I dig instrumental music, and I like home recordings. Beat Down Sound are drums, bass and keys with a little bit of guitar and one vocal track. The music reminds me of Booker T,...
A friend insists that I spend an absurd amount of money to buy the original issue of Public Image's Metal Box, because the bass will just jump out of my speakers. For now, I'm living with the much...
You should check out this album because: 1. It contains stories from a people's history of the United States, stories of strikes and mining towns, that you're unlikely to find anywhere else, and 2. It...
In a recent interview vocalist Yasuko described her band's sound as "machine guns and laser beams fighting each other," but for all of Melt Banana's slice-and-dice freakiness they clearly possess a...
Prog rock played with hardcore intensity. Sledgehammer metronome rhythms and guitar student scale charts galore. This is the kind of stuff that can easily choke on it's own pretension, but these guys...
God, I hate record reviewers, especially the smug, confused bastards that write for little 'zines. They're all gonna (once again) tell us how Bob Pollard and company sold out by going into a fancy...
