WHAT I WANTED TO DO:
My last record, Emoh, and almost every record I’ve done, for that matter, were patchworks of songs from different studios and different times. In some cases, these songs were recorded years apart.
With this record, I wanted it to be of a particular time with a consistent texture, where all the songs were recorded more or less at the same time in the same place. Also, I wanted to make it denser and more aggressive in the style of my earlier recordings as Sentridoh. The songs I had been writing seemed more provocative and ready for that approach.
I also wanted to make a record that reflected the music I was listening to at the time: the Knife, Panda Bear, and the thousands of beautifully concise country western, ’60s garage/psych, ska, R&B, punk, post-punk, hardcore, and hard rock songs that play randomly from my iPod every night. So I came up with 14 two- to three-minute, heavily layered (to the point of blurring) acoustic-based electric songs with synthesizers, natural keyboards, some heavy drumming, and vocals piled on top.
RECORDING DETAILS:
I initially recorded in LA at my practice space and at home. I decided to call this self-recorded set-up Earknife (on account of my deafeningly clumsy recording style). I was touring extensively throughout 2008 with Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. but used time at home to work on the album.
Starting in January 2008, I recorded the skeleton of each song onto a 4-track and added a layer of acoustic guitars to a primitive drum machine. Then I transferred the songs to 24-track and continued layering: synthesizer, chord organ, electric guitar, baritone guitar, tapes, etc., and the first attempts at vocals until the songs took shape. I invited my longtime collaborator Imaad Wasif over and he added his guitar to eight songs. After that, I decided some songs needed drums. Then Murph, my colleague in Dinosaur Jr., came from Massachusetts and tried some things out, but I didn’t record the drums very well and realized, definitively, that I needed to take the tracks to “real” studio to complete percussion and vocals.
Along came Andrew “Mudrock” Murdock, a producer known for his work with Godsmack and Avenged Sevenfold, who happened to be walking his dogs by my house. He invited me to check out his studio, the Hobby Shop in the Highland Park neighborhood of LA, which was conveniently close to my practice space. He didn’t know much about my music but, like me, was looking for someone new to work with. We talked, I listened to other things he had recorded and decided that, though of a nu metal pedigree, Mudrock had an open mind and the creative flexibility to address my album in progress and understand what I wanted. We got along well, had a good time hanging out, and he drove me to and from the studio(!).
