3 posts from May 2008

Here's the jump to the video and audio of the MOBY session

After a long absence, Moby returned to the basement studios for another live session to perform songs from his recently released album, "Last Night".  He was last here to perform in 1999.  Moby does stop by now and then for a guest DJ set, as he did in 2003 and 2004. 

Perhaps it is only fitting, since "Last Night" marks a return, of sorts, to the rave and house influenced music that made him one of the preeminent forces of electronic dance music in the 90's.

 

The band featured guitarist Patrick Maters, Elan Pelushko on keyboards, Adam Marcello on drums, vocalists Shayna Steele and Amber Edwards, and rap vocalist Aynzli.  Moby played bass.

Two of the songs, Alice and Natural Blues were straight out rock arrangements featuring just the band.  The rest of the session incorporated pre-mixed tracks in combination with the band.  The challenge for a mix engineer working with some elements being pre-recorded, is trying to match the live parts with music that was recorded in an entirely different space.  Moby displayed his legendary talent as a producer by suggesting just the right combination of processing to create a seamless illusion.  With Moby's help, we got the mix right in short order during sound check.  This is most aptly demonstrated in the song "I Love to Move in Here", which is the 3rd song of the set, just before the interview.  The pulsating rhythm and sensual groove is really enhanced by the tasty guitar playing of Patrick and the beats are carried by Adam.

 

With so much time on our hands after sound check, Moby and I turned to conversation of politics, considering this was a primary election day.  We traded stories from eminent domain, to the state of the Democratic nomination.  The dude is engaged and impressively informed. 

 

 

Ray Guarna

Listen to the Bostich and Fussible live session here

Bostich and Fussible are two members of the Tijuana based ensemble known at Nortec Collective. Years ago as I started in my recording career I worked as an engineer in a South LA studio that recorded Mexican music.  This session brought back some memories of that as I heard the Trumpets hitting the lines along with Clarinet and Accordion.  Electronic musicians Bostich and Fussible made it a party in our performance studio with their sample layered tracks and that Mexican touch of get up and dance rhythms.  They switched back and forth with tracks and manipulated sounds with two Tenori pads

Be sure to check out our video coverage. We tapped into the video graphics usually projected onto screens at
live sessions and incorporated them into the web video.

Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer

Watch or listen to the Cinematic Orchestra here

I had a great time with the Cinematic Orchestra after one of the worse ever commutes to KCRW that morning.  Despite the early load-in, the guys were here waiting for me and almost set up. 

Many times when we get an input list and there's a laptop listed,  it means the band will most likely be playing along with tracks that are pre-recorded.  But with Cinematic Orchestra, band leader Jason Swinscoe was using Pro Tools (and it's newest sampler software) to fire off elements, and then controlling them with a midi keyboard. So he was actually performing as an electronic musician and manipulating elements within Pro Tools, finally feeding me a stereo
mix.  The band performed along with Jason's cues and created a nice mix of cinematic swells and jazzy riffs.  With some bands, the length and tempo of the songs are fixed, and dictated by the computer. In this case, Jason could stretch out a verse or chorus, lengthen or shorten songs or change them all together. 

Adding to the great musicians were vocals from Heidi Vogel and guitarist Grey Reverend.

Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer