Just back from working with Springsteen’s producer Ron Aniello in New Jersey last week, been recording new Guster songs. These shots are from tracking sessions last summer with Ron and Rich Costey at Guilford Sound in Southern Vermont. The sessions last week were my favorite Guster sessions I’ve been on in the 13 years since I joined the band.
Super glad to have been a part of this one.
Regina Spektor’s new album Home, Before and After is out June 24th on Warner. Produced by Regina Spektor and John Congleton.
With Regina on vocals, piano, and keyboards, Joey Waronker on drums, Congleton as multi-instrumentalist, and orchestral arrangements by Jherek Bischoff. I played mustang bass, electric guitar, nylon string guitar, tapes, keyboards, mellotron and processing.
Very powerful and adventurous songwriting, can’t wait for the world to hear.
Thanks to Congleton for bringing me in.
Wishing this album all the best.
TRACKLISTING
01 Becoming All Alone
02 Up the Mountain
03 One Man’s Prayer
04 Raindrops
05 SugarMan
06 What Might Have Been
07 Spacetime Fairytale
08 Coin
09 Loveology
10 Through a Door
New Briston Maroney single. Produced by John Congelton. I played mustang bass, electric guitar, 4-track cassettes and Mellotron.
Two Hundred Fifty Glaciers, is the first piece from my new album, Vanishing Places Vol. 2 Glaciers In Iceland, one of the three commissioned pieces I made for CHANGE, a permanent art exhibit dedicated to examining and expressing response to vulnerable polar geographies.
The album’s worth of music that I made for the installation, incorporates field recordings I made in Iceland, data sonification, pedal steel, electric guitar and tapes.
This piece contains the same number of notes as the number of remaining glaciers in Iceland (two hundred fifty). I limited the harmonic content of the piece to thirteen pitches, each pitch representing one of the thirteen largest glaciers in Iceland. Simple and mutually compatible clusters of notes were recorded to four loops, then played back at different speeds. The thirteen pitches re-combine throughout the piece to form new clusters of notes in an evolving soundscape.
I began by making field recordings in Iceland, then asked for help from glaciologist Oddur Sigurðsson to establish some parameters for the piece. My goals leading up to this project were to expand on some concepts from Vanishing Places Vol. 1 Bears Ears, and to attempt to tie certain aspects of the recording and composition process to the geography of Iceland.
I’ll share more details soon, but this is a project I am very excited to be a part of. Installation on the Endurance will take place in February, 2020 and is scheduled to depart April 2, 2020 out of Svalbard, Norway.
Two records that I’m very proud of — Sharon Van Etten, Remind Me Tomorrow, and Guster, Look Alive, both came out yesterday.
Thanks to John Congleton for inviting me out to play on Sharon Van Etten’s new album. It was one of the true highlights of my year and I am thankful to have been involved. Congleton and Sharon created an environment in the studio where we were all encouraged to stretch and embrace the unknown.
What a crew of inspiring and adventurous musicians on those sessions, and an unbelievable batch of songs written by SVE. I hope we make a lot more music together. She’s the best.
Hear Sharon break down every track from Remind Me Tomorrow on NPR All Songs Considered clicking here.
The new Guster album Look Alive came out this week. Big thanks to our friends and collaborators Leo Abrahams (who produced 8/10 songs on the album), John Congleton (who produced three songs including “Mind Kontrol”) and Sam Cohen (who produced “When You Go Quiet”). Also thank you to engineer Graham Lessard, who recorded the bulk of the album, assistant engineers Will Maclellan, Shae Brossard, Sean Cook and Daniel Avila, Collin Dupuis who mixed 8/10 tracks on the album (except for “Summertime” and “Not For Nothing” both mixed by Leo), and Adam Ayan who mastered.
And last but not least — thanks to our families, our team and our crew. We’re a lucky bunch.
