New Monday #80
Happy Monday -
Hopefully for you, not for me! My trusty Mac mini seems kinda dead this morning. I have it backed up, but locked inside it is today’s New Monday. Damnit. Usually I write them on a cloud app; this one was written in Apple Notes, and evidently the note didn’t get saved to the cloud.
Ah, well. Accidents will happen. I will reconstruct what I can.
This is all about listening, and things to listen to that will light up your ears in a good way.
Want to hear more? Listen with an open notebook. Write stuff down, draw pictures.
Accidents Will Happen
I gave you this song to listen to last week. Here are links to it:
This was recorded at Eden, which was a major studio in London until the mid-2000s. 24 tracks with a console designed and built by the staff, which included Roger Becherian, who engineered 'Armed Forces', Elvis Costello's third album.
'Armed Forces' was a very live-in-the-studio affair. Drums in the middle, everyone in a circle around it, everything cut live, including a guide vocal, which often became the lead vocal of choice. Producer Nick Lowe went for vibe not accuracy or perfection. The vocals were cut with a really cheap mic, a Beyer M400, also called a Soundstar 2. It's basically a German SM58. Becherian tried to use a U87 but Costello delivered his snarling vocals with so much spit the mic would short out. Really, the vocal sound is kind of awful—way compressed and midrange heavy, but it works and gives everything a spitty, in your face energy.
I made a map of what I'm hearing:
Drums
The drums seem to drift from hihat slightly right on the verses to slightly left on the choruses. On the verses, the snare is doubled with a rack tom hit. Because the hihat doesn't interrupt for that, I think the toms are an overdub and that Becherian moved the kit around in the chorus. On this other recording from the album, you get a better idea of the drums. And I found a picture from the session:
Note the tom out in front—more evidence of an overdub? Or it could be they removed drums that weren't used on a particular song to keep kit resonance down. Also note, only one crash cymbal! Pete Thomas is a hell of a player. He always seems ahead of the beat to me, which gives many Elvis Costello recordings a sense of a car going out of control down a hill.
Bass
Bruce Thomas' wonderful bass is the center of the song. Great part, very articulate sound. The choruses can be divided into four chunks, the "Accidents will happen" part and the "You used to be a victim" part, each repeated. Listen for a major change of bass sound on the fourth chunk, the last "I don't wanna hear it." It could be the way he's playing but it might also be a change in the mix. There are all sorts of subtle changes in level and parts on this recording. I think they were thinking that it should be slightly different at every moment. Another guy that thinks this way is Tchad Blake—he's always looking for something different, some little change to differentiate things.
Keys
Steve Nieve is responsible for the intricacies of this arrangement. His classically influenced keyboard parts also vary across the duration of the track. Listen for how one part is replaced by another—the verse is an organ, the 1st chunk of the chorus stabs on an organ, then a grand piano, wet and lush comes in, replacing the organ. His arrangements are things replacing rather than things layering.
Guitars
They seem almost non-existent, but they're there, played by Mr Costello, buried in the back and slightly left. Often his parts are lead lines that fit with the keyboards, not chords. The keys and guitar lines have a Beatle-esque vocal quality: two different parts that also seem harmonies, but they're not. Again, really interesting parts.
Vox
It's a very one-and-done vocal, doubled on the choruses. There is a three-part harmony that stacks up into the ending vamp. There's an interesting mix choice here. The vocals are all panned left, the reverb is mainly on the right. There's a substitution of left-to-right space for front-to-back space, which makes the vocals sound even more spacious than if the three parts were panned across left center right and the reverb then behind it. This is definitely something to experiment with on your own mixes.
On the version of this I lost, I wrote a bunch more on Costello's early recordings but that's not happening today. Schedules must be kept!
Bookmark This Video!
Check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u2cFvLYv6s
The WDR Big Band is an amazing bunch of players in Germany. Why bookmark this video?
First of all, it is a superb recording. To pull off this level of clarity in a live situation is top flight engineering and mixing. Everything unfolds across the soundstage with such solidity. Close your eyes and you see the band. Kudos to the engineering staff.
Secondly, the video shows you exactly what mic to put where on each instrument. It's like a how-to video. Check out the interesting angling of the mics on the toms—a reason to love the small, weird shape of the AKG-C414—you can't do that with a MD 421. Ribbon mics on the trombones, condensers on the trumpets. You can see exactly what to do on just about everything other than the upright bass, the kick, and the piano.
But hang on: their YouTube channel is FULL of stuff like this, showing mic technique for everything. It's a masterclass / reference book on how to do it. Highly recommended.
Listen To This!
I watched 'Killers of the Flower Moon' Friday night and was blown away by the soundtrack. It lurks in the film like another character, perhaps the main character. It's moody and haunting, with Osage tribal rhythms, blues elements, and a rough texture that sounds like dust and decay. And it's a terrific recording.
Composed by Robbie Robertson as he was dying of cancer, played by him, along with a host of other musicians, this soundtrack is a spacious, sonic delight. Leave it on in the background while you cook dinner, or sit in front of it and drink it all in with your eyes closed. Hear it with headphones and fall asleep and have nightmares. Whatever: just listen to it.
Speaking of listening, please write in and tell me what streaming services you all use.
Phew! Done.
Warm regards,
Luke