Cut of the Month is GHOST LOBBY. You've heard me go on and on about Water Kill the Sun. This group features the songwriting, guitar and vocals of Tara Ellis, who is the drummer in WKTS. This is cut is from their EP that just came out.

ELBA stopped by for a few days to record an EP's worth of music in a quick and dirty style. It was a ton of fun because they asked me to create a drum sound that was over compressed and distorted. It was fun and horrifying at the same time.

I started on this long tape transfer project which is the archival audio collection of Senator Henry M Jackson. This guy was from the state of Washington and was in Congress for more than 30 years! I'm transferring all the recordings to digital for preservation and access. It's a huge job but really interesting to hear speeches given while he was running for President, roasts for him or roasts that he spoke at. News reels about him, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, Nixon, Brezhnev, Cater, Reagan. It all there! In handling and transferring all these different types of tapes, it makes me appreciate the analog format so much. I'm playing tapes from the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's and they all play fine and sound great. The cassettes survived too, although there were a few that were tough to play. They squeal sometimes.

Of course, construction is still ongoing in the new studio.

I ate a bit of turkey, it snowed in Seattle and I saw an amazing show by Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet.

On the horizon are a few really cool things.

First is a Wizard Prison show on dec 23rd at the Re-Bar in Seattle, WA. We may even have copies of our second CD called II. This show will feature new member John Vallier who I played with before in Climax Golden Twins. This will also be the premiere of our new film overlay.The set will consist of 1 part VCS3 electronics with break beats and a 1 part impressions of Xasthur. Should be scary!

In January I'm off to the desert to record a new Animal Collective record. I'm super excited about it because we will be recording exclusively on analog tape and will stay in that format to the very end. The tracking will be done on 2" 24 track tape and the mixing (which will take place in NY in March) will be through a Trident 80C with Uptown automation to 1/2" 2 track. I'm hoping that the vinyl version will be cut from the 1/2" tape. Should be really hard and fun at the same time.

There is also talk of sound designing a film called The Lazarus Papers which will take me to Thailand for the post work. But that's not until the summer.

What's in your Wallet?