Interviews | No. 172
By Geoff Stanfield and Emily Paige Pereira
The story of Regina Spektor is one of a truly self-made artist. In 1989, at nine years old, Spektor and her family emigrated from Moscow to the Bronx in New York. Her love and affinity for playing the piano found her studying in high school at the Manhattan School of Music, and as she...
Tom Hull, better known as Kid Harpoon, has produced, co-produced, and co-written with an impressive list of high-profile artists over the last 15 years or so, including Harry Styles, David Byrne, Kings of Leon, Miley Cyrus, Inhaler, Florence + the Machine, Shawn Mendes, and Maggie...
As a studio owner in Austin, I used to cash in on the SXSW (South By Southwest) music festival and conferences. Creative-use spaces in close proximity to the festival were at a serious premium, and for a few years in the 2010s I could make six months' rent in two weeks. It meant...
"They said that the little man couldn't do it. 'Oh, you can't dig 35 feet below your home.' But I did it, one step at a time, man." Thus began our conversation with Robert Lang. Outside of Seattle – in Shoreline, Washington – there's an iconic...
On the suggestion of Tape Op's Sales & Operations Director, Corey Reidy, I decided to check out the career of Jeff Rosenstock. His early bands, The Arrogant Sons of Bitches and Bomb the Music Industry!, built up grassroots followings via a DIY ethic, and, as Corey told me, “He...
Clarissa Connelly, the Scotland-born, Copenhagen-based composer, first captured audiences’ attention with her 2018 release, Tech Duinn, and has been creating medieval-tinged multidimensional soundscapes ever since. Informed by her masters' level composition studies at the Rhythmic...
The engineer/producer behind the sound of the '80s Metallica albums is Flemming Rasmussen and his Sweet Silence Studios, located in Copenhagen, Denmark. These early Metallica records, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice for All, brought a whole new light to the...
James Krivchenia is best known as the drummer for the band Big Thief. But prior to sitting on the drum stool with that band, he put in quite a bit of time as an engineer and producer in a variety of recording situations, from studios with SSL consoles to makeshift home setups. He...
In my hometown of Portland, Oregon, there are a number of talented engineers, producers, mixers, mastering engineers, gear builders, studios, and more. It's a thriving community of creative people, if you hadn't noticed, and one of the folks I'd been curious about for...
Emily A. Sprague may be best known as the primary songwriter and vocalist for the band Florist, who have released five albums since 2016. But she also composes and records ambient-adjacent electronic music, primarily using modular synthesizers, and is about to release her fourth...
Located in (yes) a former meat market, Pete Min calls Lucy's Meat Market in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, his two room recording studio and home. Artists such as Meshell Ndegeocello, Real Estate, Lake Street Dive, Orville Peck, Chris Dave, The Monkees and others have used his...
With the goal of releasing records recorded at the highest fidelity with minimal processing, Doug Fearn and brothers George and Geoff Hazelrigg began Outer Marker Records a few years ago, using DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recorders as opposed to the more typical PCM (Pulse Code...