Seattle Magazine had a feature article on my and although the newsstand issue is gone, there is a short blurb here.
The entire month of October was spent at Studio Vega in the south of France working on a new record by French pop star Cali. There is a promotional video for the record at
This was a fantastic recording experience! it rates right up there with Animal Collective as all time favorite recording experiences. Studio Vega is a very cool vintage studio in the small town of Carpentras in the south of France. They have a well maintained EMI console that was used on The Rolling Stones "Some Girls" record. We tried to find coke remains but the search was rendered useless. It really turned my head around about the sound of these old consoles. I've always been a Trident fan, but these EMI's are pretty sweet too. When it came time to mix Bertrand (my assistant) and I experimented with a mix rendered inside ProTools in stereo form and compared the sound to that of a 16 track submix through the console. The 16 track submix sounded wider in stereo and more defined in the placement of the instruments than the stereo mix. It's a real testament to this particular console.
From day one I thought everything sounded very nice, but it wasn't all the console's fault. I only broke Pro Tools 3 times in the session. I was surrounded by the greatest group of musicians I've seen in a long time. Super professional, super nice and no egos!!! The group allowed me room to be myself and let me try all kinds of weird experiments. It was a fantastic collaboration and meeting of the minds.
It was quite an experience in producing a record in French without really knowing French. luckily everyone understood English and that was a plus, but I came away from the session feeling inspired to learn french and have started the process. The off times were great too. You see, up to 13 people were all living in the house and eating together and recording and there were no problems. The studio has a chef who prepared the most amazing meals and the wine was fantastic and I became a real fan of duck and the plat du fromage .
About a week into the project I felt it was safe to reveal my true colors and play a Wizard Prison video for everyone. They all sat around my laptop intently watching the Fillmore Show from our recent tour. Afterwards Cali said, " you must open for me in Paris". I thought he was drunk but he kept bringing it up and bringing it up over the next several weeks, so hopefully, all of Paris will see this madness in April next year.
I recorded 10 of 16 songs and mixed all 16. Most of the songs I produced were done in a Phil Spector style but without shooting anyone in the face. It was a real wall of sound approach in that certain pieces would have flourishes of 25 drums or prepared piano or kick drums with small stones on it or 50 vocal tracks for the "ahs". It all mixed together like a warm blanket to support Cali's storys and wonderful voice.
During the mix process Mathias Malzieu from Dionysos (whose new record "la Mecanique du Coeur" is fantastic) came by to mix with me as he produced the other 6 tracks. We hit it off so well, but it was sad because I didn't speak French and there was so much we wanted to say to each other but had to simplify. If i had know French we would have stayed up all night talking about Nick Cave and Tim Burton and David Lynch and Mark Rothko and Henry Miller.
So sating goodbye to eveyone was hard and depressing because it was such a good experience and such a good record. Hopefully we can all work again. Please look for this record when it's released in February in France. I think you will be pleasantly surprised! --