On June 3, Brooklyn-based recording studio, The Creamery, will release
volume one of its series, The Creamery Mixtape, featuring ten
cherry-picked artists rising to the top of the Brooklyn music scene. Los
Hacheros, Alpenglow, Live Footage and Uni Ika Ai are a few of the
groups to appear. The release showcases a wide variety of the city’s
musical genres, putting them in concert under one sonic umbrella.
Producer/engineers Quinn McCarthy and Jeff Fettig, who operate the
studio, took the project on almost as a dare. Over a short three-day
period during this year’s CMJ music festival in New York, each of the
ten groups came through the studio in three hour slots to record a few songs, live to tape.
“It was about finding the right groups who could play and have a sound,”
Fettig recalls. McCarthy followed, “We made up our minds before we even
started that this wasn’t going to be about producing each band and each
song to sound its ‘best.’ Studios are always trying to market their
mixes as ear candy. Of course, pushing a band to its stylistic apex is a
skill and it’s a logical goal, but so many of the records we love
aren’t about technical perfection, it’s about capturing a creative
performance and an artistic vision.” The songs were recorded in this way
to capture the spontaneous and organic feel of live recording, with the
goal of creating a listening experience that blends modern artists with
old-school recording styles.
To help create a sonic palette that united each artist, McCarthy and
Fettig encouraged them to share instruments and gear with each other,
utilizing the same drum set and amplifiers used on a salsa number and
for an electronic duo. For the most part, the bands played to the vibe
of the room without headphones. Though often an uncommon philosophy, for
this session they felt that bleed between instruments is not only ok,
but a basis for the sound, with every mic in the room also doubled as a
‘room mic.’ The sounds went straight into their 1985 Tascam MS-16 Tape
Machine with minimal mixing in post, leaving nearly everything as it
sounded in the room.
The Creamery Mixtape trancends genre and trend, it carries the energy of
the studio and the honesty of the moment. It’s as fun to listen to as
it was to record.
Featuring: Wolf!, Alpenglow, Los Hacheros, Miay Folick, Uni Ika Ai, Tim
Porbaix, Toebow, Vassals, Live Footage, and Whitney Lockert.
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