#3 High Rotation Playlist

These are the tunes that have been on high rotation inside and outside the ENCODER Sound Mastering Studio over the last few weeks. Available in playlist form at your preferred streaming service, follow the links: Spotify | Apple Music [If you really love an artist’s music, scoot over to Bandcamp to send them a few dollars more directly]

Beck — Colors, Colors (2017) — I love the blend of depth and punch in the master. Their’s also lovely sonic transitions from verse to chorus, and vice versa, subtle timbral shift that are very effective.

Death by Denim — Feels Like Fiction, Feels Like Fiction - Single (2021) — This mix feels so lush and full, but with clarity retained. I also dig the vocal delivery. 

Richard Dawson — Civil Servant, 2020 (2019) — The songwriting and lyricism is the thing here. Each section so logically moving into the next, it’s really masterful. Sonically, it’s all at once high fidelity and lo-fi/real.

Kurt Vile — Pretty Pimpin, b’lieve i’m goin down (1997) — For me, it’s the way the drums wrap around the outside of this tune, very natural sounding with a thick attack. The drums really drive the whole thing, but of course it’s a pretty nice vocal delivery. The lyrics are poignant but use an everyday vernacular, I like that kind of stuff.

Bjork — Army of Me, Post (1995) — The rumbling low end on this track is so thick, it gives that feeling of real depth. I like how the beat is pretty wide, and different elements in the production highlight smaller subdivisions, it reminds me of some Nine Inch Nails production for this reason.

Radiohead — Identikit, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) — The Radiohead back catalogue hit Bandcamp a month or so ago, and this instigated a bit of re-listening. I’m loving the subtle reverb tails on the vocal, they dance just out of earshot giving the sense of a really activated space that this song is taking place in.

Widowspeak — The Good Ones, Plum (2015) — This kind of close, produced, tight, but kind of natural drum sound is really cool. The sparse instrumentation also opens up space for all elements to be really weighty and present.

King Britt & Tyshawn Sorey — Untitled Two, Tyshawn & King (2021) — I’m a big fan of improvised music. There is something special about the energy of records that capture artists inspiring their collaborators and in turn being inspired during the process of making the work. Tyshawn & King record has that feeling. 

#2 High Rotation Playlist

These are the tunes that have been on high rotation inside and outside the ENCODER Sound Mastering Studio over the last few weeks. Available in playlist form at your preferred streaming service, follow the links: Spotify | Apple Music [If you really love an artist’s music, scoot over to Bandcamp to send them a few dollars more directly]…[the final two track on this list are unavailable on streaming services, so a record store or Bandcamp dive is the way to go there]

FOAM — Body Into Mine, Coping Mechanism (2017) — This track has a great groove and syncopation. I really like the first vocal entry beginning with the refrain, kind of tipping the song structure on its head.

Radiohead — Everything in its Right Place, Kid A (2000) — The keys are so fluffy and warm on this one, and it really bounces you into the album beautifully. The track kind of swirls and builds and then becomes very clear and concise towards the end.

Bjork — Jóga, Homogenic (1997) — The vocal delivery is impeccable, of course. I also really love the approach to rhythm where we are simultaneously slow and wide, and rhythmically complex — dropping through layers of subdivision. And, the strings are lush and feel really good.

The Vines — Animal Machine, Winning Days (2004) — This album is pretty great for walking around town, and singing along. The bass and drums kind of roll over each other in the down section, it sits really well.

Huntsville — (Er), Pond (2015) — I’m continuing my Huntsville trip. This is the first track I ever heard of theirs. The bass drum is so thick in this track, and the minimal interjections from the other players leave a lot of nice space. There’s also a brain bending shifting of time between the snare drum brush playing and the driving bass drum, so subtly tense.

Guiding Lights — Happy Ending, Cold Reading (2020) — I was on a little guitar kick this week, and this tune from Polish band Guiding Lights is great.

Elliot Smith — Needle in the Hay, Elliot Smith (1995) — Guitars and voices, just so clear and close. The melodies and lyrics have to be compelling, and they are. It’s a fairly iconic track.

Pixies — Caribou, Come On Pilgrim (1987) — The reverbs on this recording are nice, and the snare drum is a cool blend of trashy and fat but nestled nicely in the midfield.

Ilmiliekki Quartet — Take It With Me, Take It With Me (2010) — This Finnish band melds timbral manipulation with modern melodies. Its availability on streaming services seems limited so a CD hunt is on the cards (TUM Records, TUM CD 020).

lia t — fleeting, sketches222 (2020) — There is a wonderful coexistence of pristine synthesised layers and field recordings on this record. In this track I love that sense of deep soundstage and the subtle air/fuzz that moves side to side further enhancing this depth. (Only available on Bandcamp on the Deep Water label).

#1 High Rotation Playlist

These are the tunes that have been on high rotation inside and outside the ENCODER Sound Mastering Studio over the last few weeks. Available in playlist form at your preferred streaming service, follow the links: Spotify | Apple Music (If you really love an artist’s music, scoot over to Bandcamp to send them a few dollars, more directly)

Jyoti — The Black Mother, Ocotea (2010) — Opening track to this great album. For me it sets the tone for the record, the pace. Every tune on here is awesome.

Didion’s Bible — Seven Sisters, No Caveat (2021) — This particular track reminds me of Pixies, it has a lovely swagger to it and some melodies float through the background. Some catchy gems throughout this No Caveat EP.

Deerhoof — Red Dragon, Halfbird (2019, originally 2001) — The beginning of this tune is so delicate, it really opens up a different world in the context of the album which is on the whole fairly chaotic, forward music.

Huntsville — Add a Key of Humanity, For the Middle Class (2006) — I love this group, and this is off their first record. The unwavering drive of the snare/percussion part is pretty intense.

HAIM — Something to Tell You, Something to Tell You (2020) — Perhaps an outlier on this playlist, but this album sounds great, the song writing is fantastic. And this tune, when the first backing vocals kick in its a shivery moment.

Fauxe — Don’t They Know, ALTRUISM: THE BEGINNING (2019) — This album is pretty great for walking around town. This track is my fave out of a great bunch.

Elliot Smith — St. Ides Heaven, Elliot Smith (1995) — The organic groove of the guitar playing on this album is infectious and honest. The music is really stripped back to the bare essentials, highlighting melody and the humanness of the artist — the close-mic, naturally recorded with subtle layering of parts is super engaging.

Phil Slater — Third Bell, The Dark Pattern (2019) — This track is kind of in two halves and when that middle section hits the amazingly controlled trumpet playing, crips, warm recording, and melody/harmony really elicit that shivery musical moment.

Ceramic Dog — Lies My Body Told Me, Your Turn (2013) — Live sounding rock; intriguing, poignant, but not over-dramatic lyrics. There is a casual, fun-ness to this record that I like, but not at the expense of tight ensemble playing.

Streifenjunko — Utligning, Sval Torv (2009) — A wild trumpet and saxophone duo from Norway. Deep tonal manipulation creates very detailed, kind of ambient (but not really) music.

Jeremy Segal — Plateaux

Plateaux, the new EP for Jeremy Segal, is out now. Jeremy works across many genres and under many guises from synth-pop composition and production, as Segue, to production/engineering for Man Sandal, and Buckland, and performing with Didion’s Bible, Seacrest Gardens, and Web Rumors Ex Machina.

Plateaux continues an ongoing investigation of ambient electronic music, following on from Four Footprints (2020). It’s concise, intentful ambient music. In moments ear-tickling, at other times driving, and the transitional points between these two modes offer a transfixing confluence of detail.

‘Moment,’ from Plateaux is in the RTRFM’s Sound Selection for the week starting September 6th, 2021 (the definitive what’s-good-listening-right-now list from a Boorloo perspective).

Music by Jeremy Segal
Artwork by Daniel Veneklaas
Mastered by Dan @ENCODERSound

orphans — long-sounds

long-sounds, the latest live set from orphans, is out now on Bandcamp. It was recorded at the July 2021 edition of Outcome Unknown, an experimental music series at Maylands Yacht Club, curated and hosted by Eduardo Cossio. The second of the two tracks, ‘influenced by heavy weather,’ drawing on the sonic backdrop created by a pretty intense storm sweeping through Boorloo during the concert.

Recorded by Josten Myburgh
Mastered by Dan @ENCODERSound