Wally Gagel spent many years engineering at Boston's Fort Apache Studio, working on many cool records with bands like Belly, Sebadoh, Old 97's, and Pell Mell. Now he lives in L.A. and has a home studio called Bliss, where he did most of this record, while keeping a day gig producing all kinds of rock action. Follow Your Bliss sits well alongside the Chemical Brothers or William Orbit in a grooving way but the songs are very well worked out compared to some of that stuff. There are guest vocals by Tanya Donelly (Belly/Throwing Muses), John Doe (imagine him singing over an electronic beat!), Lou Barlow (Sebadoh/Folk Implosion) and more. And there are lots of sonic goodies to listen to - sounds great loud or on headphones! (www.lunchrecords.com)
Music Reviews | No. 35
Copying Machine Music
by Larry Crane
Dr. Stefan Helmreich recorded the rhythmic sounds of photocopy machines on a Realistic Minisette-20, manipulating the sounds in an Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus. The songs have titles like "Xerox 5828". This...