Autumn is my favorite season. I like cardigans and warm beverages, changing leaves, falling leaves, leaves that crunch under my feet. Even though I haven’t been in school in over a decade, I still love that back-to-school vibe. So, the teacher’s pet in me says it’s time for an update. On the mastering front:

We did the math, and it turns out I’ve been working with Ken Urban and his band Occurrence for over 8 years. Their most recent album I Have So Much Love To Give (produced by the band, mixed by Daniel Kluger) is smart, dark, weird, danceable, and so much more.

Matthew McNeal has a new album on the way, so for a preview of this hotness, check out the first two singles, “Texas Heat” and “The Spark.” These were recorded by Andre Black at Matte Black Sound and mixed by Ted Young.

I first heard of the Grassy Knoll when I played their records while DJ-ing at my college radio station. Many years later, I had the pleasure of revisiting and remastering Short Stories Redux.

I cannot get enough of multi-instrumentalist Pachyman’s The Return Of…, truly a joyous and genius record. For more on Pachy, check out this piece about his record on NPR.

I mastered all the music for Desert In, an astonishingly moving and rather racy eight episode opera mini-series, created by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid, playwright christopher oscar peña, and director James Darrah, commissioned by the Boston Lyric Opera. Desert In is streaming exclusively on operabox.tv.

Awesome Tapes is releasing two records this fall that came through my studio: Ephat Mujuru & the Spirit of the People’s delicate yet electrifying mbira record Mbavaira and Native Soul’s Teenage Dreams. Listen and read more about both on their Bandcamp pages.

Aloha Got Soul dropped some total knockouts this summer, Eddie Suzuki’s blissful High Tide, Arthur Lyman’s last recorded album, the dreamy Island Vibes, and a record that really hit my soul, Mackey Fearey Band’s 1978 self-titled LP. All three of these records are worth diving into for repeated listens.

I’ve always got a backlog of tapes to digitize, including some deep cuts from the Lookout! Records catalog and live recordings from the Freight & Salvage. My new custom-made 1/4” / 1/4-track / 1/2-track / full track mono head assembly is serving me well.

This is a little taste of what I’ve been working on. I’m always grateful to collaborate on records both new and old. In fact, I’d better get to work on this next one. Until next time…!

For me, May brings the triple crown of conferences/meetings: ARSC, AES, and the Recording Academy on top of my usual mastering, restoration and preservation work. Fair warning: I have poured a glass of wine and am procrastinating working on a highly challenging but utterly beautiful record in order to write this.

I joined Rich Martin (Archeophone), Bryan Hoffa (Library of Congress) and Seth Winner to teach a workshop on Digital Restoration in the 21st Century for the Association of Recorded Sound Collections annual conference. I love that we have to specify 21st century. I had to clarify to attendees that I frequently restore recordings made in the 1990s, not 1890s, as some of my colleagues specialize in the pre-electrical era of recorded music.

For the AES 150th, I offered my take on audio preservation outside of major institutions for a panel put together by Nadja Wallaszkovits. I also had a deeply moving conversation on mentoring with fellow mastering engineers and friends Piper Payne, Anna Frick, Maria Rice and Margaret Luthar.

Exciting news on the mastering front! I am thrilled to be a longtime part of the Erroll Garner preservation team, and we will all be popping the champagne to celebrate Erroll’s Centennial this year with 3 New Releases from Octave Music & Mack Avenue Music Group, including a never-before-heard sold out concert at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1959. This exquisite collection includes the 12 LPs from the Octave Remastered series plus the Symphony Hall concert and Erroll’s last performance at Mister Kelly’s in Chicago. I shared the mastering duties with Osiris Studio’s Michael Graves. This box set was produced by Peter Lockhart and Steve Rosenthal and has expansive liner notes written by Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley, Terri Lyne Carrington and Cécile McLorin Salvant. A truly glorious career-spanning collection of music that will redefine Erroll’s legacy as a jazz pianist.

A few more mastering projects…

The Return Of… Pachyman drops this summer on ATO, but you can hear the first single and pre-order now.

DJ Black Low’s amapiano banger Uwami is out now on Awesome Tapes From Africa, but Bandcamp says the vinyl already sold out.

Hailu Mergia is releasing a reissue of an incredibly rare cassette only release from 1975, Tezeta. Pitchfork had some nice things to say about it.

Here’s a red hot single from Life In Sweatpants, Good 2 Yourself.

And a modern exotica record that requires a cocktail, This Is Vintage Now, Vol. 2.

Finally, I spoke with Geoff Stanfield for the Tape Op podcast DISCussion about my love for Scott Walker’s Scott 3, a cracked doorway from early heartthrob Scott to later avant-garde noisy Scott. My dream is to sit alone in a velvet banquette on my second martini and listen to Scott sing to a half empty room.

Today, January 29, 2021, Awesome Tapes From Africa is releasing Nahawa Doumbia’s Kanawa, new music from one of Mali’s greatest singers, an uplifting melding of contemporary Malian pop, traditional instrumentation and rhythms, and socially conscious lyrics. Bandcamp made it an album of the day. This one is special to me, because over 10 years ago, I remastered Nahawa Doumbia’s La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 3, the first release on the Awesome Tapes label. I still remember unsleeving the vinyl and dropping the needle to digitize that LP. And here I am, a decade later, listening to her new music! In between, I’ve mastered and remastered every release from Awesome Tapes, truly the honor of a lifetime. On that note, check out Teno Afrika’s Amapiano Selections and DJ Black Low’s Uwami, both dropping soon, both mastered by me.

Other records that passed through my mastering studio this winter: Elska’s transporting, sometimes haunting lullabies on Leden, recorded at the Park Church Co-Op Cathedral in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and mixed by my longtime pal and collaborator Ted Young. Hear Me Calling, a sweet and moody EP by Coloradan Jess Parsons, produced by Mark Anderson. Some sunny bangers from my friends in Hawaii at Aloha Got Soul: Aura’s absolutely fiery “When The Feeling’s Right” backed with “Stop” and Mike Kahikina’s Hawaii’s Beautiful, digitized and remastered from the original tapes. I love this quote from Kahikina, pulled from the AGS website: “I was hoping to be a modern Hawaiian Bob Dylan, one man band kine, playing my guitar and singing about the issues.”

If social distancing has you missing the clubs, I urge you to turn out the lights and turn up Occurrence’s Privacy Invaders / Dead Sleep Best, which are a sneak preview of a full length dropping soon. Then sink into Even Gods Can Die’s Universus, mixed by Robert Kirby.

Bay Area synthesizer legend and electronic composer Pauline Anna Strom recorded her first new music in three decades, and I was graced with mastering duties. Angel Tears In Sunlight comes out next month on RVNG. Sadly, Pauline passed away in December at age 74. The New York Times posted her obituary yesterday. This record is just incredible, and I urge you all to take some time to listen and to watch this beautiful visual representation of “Marking Time,” directed by Victoria Keddie and Scott Kiernan of E.S.P. TV.

In between mastering duties, I’ve been reformatting analog tapes, cassettes and DATs for the Kitchen Sisters, the Arhoolie Foundation, and the Freight & Salvage coffeehouse and reveling in the time travel that is audio preservation.

With that, I wish you all a happy new year and go back to declicking this LP that will soon be transformed into a gorgeous reissue which I’ll write about when I get around to it in another six months.