EQ Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 12)

PUNCH IN Pictured in Stratosphere Studio A are (left to right) engineer Geoff Sanoff, Niklas Frisk, Nina Persson, and Nathan Larson. URBAN CAMP OUT A Camp Undergoes a Musical Metamorphosis BY JA N I C E B R OW N Formed by The Cardigans’ Nina Persson, A Camp began as a “side project” in which the Swedish siren sought to explore new musical territory—the first release being 2001’s eponymous alt-countrified pop debut produced by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. Fast-forward to 2008 in Manhattan’s Stratosphere Studios, where Persson and her felicitous cohorts— including her husband, film composer and Shudder To Think guitarist Nathan Larson, and Atomic Swing founder and musician/songwriter Niklas Frisk—have hatched a whole new set of songs. Frisk is overdubbing an ambient guitar part—with undulations courtesy of the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo—for “Golden Teeth and Silver Metals.” This is the first of a trio of generously effected overdubs the band will add to three different songs during the hour EQ crashed the session. They are nine songs into the album, tentatively entitled Colonia, which they’ve produced in studios around NYC in threeday session blocks. According to Persson, A Camp works in highly collaborative songwriting sessions prior to entering the studio. “We get together and put our ideas out there, and then we all help put the song together like a puzzle,” she says. “When a song starts to have some shape, I’ll record it on a cassette deck. Then, we’ll book three days at a commercial studio, and work on entire songs at a time.” Though Larson has a rehearsal/ recording studio in Brooklyn, where A Camp managed to do a lot of the overdubs for the new album, the band purposely avoids doing any extensive pre-production. “The idea is that the recordings be very performancebased,” Larson notes. “We come into the studio, and there’s a certain spontaneity to the sessions—everyone’s excited, and we’re building the songs as we go.” After the Americana-inspired A Camp, and Persson’s subsequent work with The Cardigans, A Camp adapted its sound somewhat to its environment. Frisk calls this second production A Camp’s “urban album,” as opposed to the first, which was written and recorded in rustic retreat. Larson explains: “A Camp had been seen as this Americana act, and it felt a little unnatural to try to recapture that just because it’s how the first record sounded. We wanted to try out some different, odd sounds. For example, there are no rock-and-roll guitar sounds on this album—it’s more string-based. And we are using some really stupid-sounding synths—like Usher and R. Kelly-style bass patches—that would sound out of context in an alt-country record.” Larson points around the studio at some of the most used instruments and effects on the record: Roland Juno-60 and SH-101 synths, a Prophet-5, an Echoplex and a Roland Space Echo RE-21. “I really like the sounds that are going on in hip-hop,” Larson notes, “especially The Neptunes approach—that really dry, clicky snare-drum thing they do.” Guided by Voices’ Kevin March contributed live drums to the upcoming A Camp release, which were augmented by signal processing. “In some cases, we’d take the live drums and run them entirely through a 12 EQ OCTOBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - October 2008

EQ Magazine - October 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Smashing Pumpkins Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Steinberg Cubase 4 Studio Meets Stage Gear for the Studio and Stage Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - October 2008

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