Unlike the LANDy record, which was compiled from six years worth of recordings and features many guests and collaborators including Steven Drozd (Flaming Lips) and Aaron Espinoza (Earlimart), The Goldberg Sisters’ self-titled album was largely recorded and mixed in one six week stint with a set group of musicians at Espinoza’s The Ship studio in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles in late 2009.
Espinoza and Goldberg first met in early 2008 when Goldberg dumped six years worth of recordings in various states of array on his desk. They proceeded to mix, overdub and record two new tracks, culminating in LANDy’s 2009 release Eros and Omissions. Much of the template for the new record was established during the LANDy sessions, drawing particularly from the single “BFF!” in which Goldberg alternates between verses of stripped down bass, piano drums, and choruses layered with strings, synths, guitars and vocal harmonies. Goldberg’s Space Echo and Echoplex—or Sister Echo, as she is known—makes a prominent appearance on the record, as does the studio itself. Both Espinoza and Goldberg like combining their analog gear with the limitless potential of Pro Tools, and then combining that with beer.
Goldberg, a self-described gearhead, explains, “There's a lot of Space Echo, a lot of Echoplex on this record. Lots of effects pedals and ‘70s synth pads. But also layers of actual strings and trumpet played by humans. Merritt Lear and Roxanne Daner on violins and Andrew Lynch on trumpet functioned as a mini-orchestra. We would layer and layer the parts and often times—if I wanted a cello sound for instance—pitch them down in Pro Tools. Or on “Shush,” I pitched Andrew’s trumpet up and down—a poor man’s horn section. On “The Difference Between,” Aaron pitched my harmonium way down and it functions as a sort of baritone sax during the orchestral outro, etc. There are some long outros on this record to be sure. We sort of had a dogma that we would not fade anything out or in (though we cheated a bit once on the latter) so you would hear everything being picked up and put down, illustrating the studio as a player on the record. And yes, I'm aware that I sound like a pretentious blowhard.”
Roughly half of the new tracks were written in the year prior to the recording of The Goldberg Sisters. One, “The Difference Between,” was written two days before the first session, while another, “Skin of the Patriot,” was written and recorded by Goldberg on his M-Box in one room, while Espinoza was mixing the rest of the record in the other. Still, other tracks were left over from the reservoir of material he had accrued over many years. For example, “Erik Erikson” dates as far back as 1999 when Goldberg could play the song without searing nerve pain in his shoulder.
It is Goldberg’s lofty ambition that this new album—which ranges in sound from the psychedelic to the psychotropic and explores themes from the depressing to the negligibly less depressing—will put a wiggle in your step and a Prozac in your coffee.
Little is known about a purported twin that Goldberg calls Celeste. Whether or not she is actually a bearded twin sister who masterminds these projects or just a thorny offshoot of Dissociative Identity Disorder remains unclear. Given the lifelong acrimony that Goldberg attests pervades their relationship the future of The Goldberg Sisters is precarious at best.