YRLK: From Blue to Green

Brad Kelly is YRLK. When I put on a partially homemade, self-released album I don't usually expect to hear something as big, epic and textured as an Elbow or Coldplay album (go ahead and chip away at my indie cred, but I thought A Rush of Blood to the Head was a pretty damn good album). Brad tracked drums and mixed with engineer Ben West at The Aashrum, a studio in Ortonville, Michigan. He then retreated to his "cave," an "overly foamed basement room" in his home. Most all of the vocals, guitars and bass were tracked here into Cubase 5 (through a Mytek ADC 96 or BLA-modded MOTU 828mk2), and pianos were remotely tracked at a school and a church. "The vocal microphone was a Korby [KAT body] with KAT67 and some Mullard tubes. Always in use was either an [Avedis Audio] MA5 or a Wunder PAFOUR Pre on the vocals into my [Universal Audio] 2-1176 or Bloo LA-2A [from a kit], or both." One of the things I really like about this album is that it utilizes the best of home and pro studio time. Tracking drums and mixing with an experienced engineer in a dedicated space, yet accumulating some nice gear at home to do various overdubs makes more sense than ever these days. I know it's not a unique process these days, but it illustrates how well it can work in the end. Brad also told me, "I hope you know that the community you've brought together was both a huge part of this record, as well as continuing to play a very useful and positive role in my life." Aw, shucks! (yrlk.com) -LC Jonny Jonny Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub and Euros Childs of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci get together for a fun side-project called Jonny. Sunny, garagey pop songs abound, with Fanclub's Dave McGowan on bass and ex-BMX Bandits Stuart Kidd on drums. The album was recorded at Chem 19, outside of Glasgow, by Paul Savage (Tape Op #72). It sounds very upfront and clean, yet totally rocking and fun. After enjoying the heck outta Paul's work on his wife Emma Pollock's The Law Of Large Numbers (you have to check out the amazing sound of this album) I'm starting to think Paul is a genius recording force to be reckoned with - and I'm super glad we got to spend an afternoon with him a few years back! (www.mergerecords.com) -LC