is anyone else digging the new Bill Callahan album?

Brian Brock · Post by **Brian Brock** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:10 am

It sounds _really_ good, and has very interesting but not artificially innovative arrangements. Every instrument is really well placed and beautiful.

The songs are back to Callahan's usual standard, from what I've taken so far.

I guess Brian Beattie played on a bunch of the songs, or mixed or produced it or something? Is he around here these days? I would love to hear how they got such great sounds and arrangements.

honkyjonk · Post by **honkyjonk** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:52 am

I'll check it out.

I remember he played for free at the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival a couple years ago. He's not big enough to warrant one of the larger stages. I heard him on the way to the bathroom, and was like, WHAAAA, Smog is playing? It happened to be the closing song of his set. I was kicking myself for not knowing Smog's real name after that because I totally would have missed whatever else I was watching to go catch him on the smallest stage in the park. Damn.

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:10 am

I am about to dig it as soon as I get around to it.

I have the utmost respect for him after "A River Ain't Too mUch ..."

Brian Brock · Post by **Brian Brock** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:06 pm

Today, I think this is his best since Knock Knock. Intense. I think I will be willing to drive up to six hours to see him play a show with these songs.

chips · Post by **chips** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:14 am

I bought this today and, one listen in I love it.
Really well arranged songs. They sound sparse but seem to have so much going on at the same time.

Really really enjoying the snare drum sound and wishing that I could make a snare sound anything like that !!!! Damn it.

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:03 am

A guy who goes by glorymorris and posts here infrequently helped out on it. Maybe he'll chime in.

mrclean · Post by **mrclean** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:04 pm

I know Brian worked on it because he was recording it while we were in Austin last Fall at the Fun Fest.

Knowing Brian, I'm sure it sounds great. (we got a tour of Brian's home studio and it is amazing! I forget what issue of Tape Op he was interviewed in while still building it...)

Glory_Morris · Post by **Glory_Morris** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:25 pm

It was recorded by John Congleton of 'The Paper Chase' and Produced by Brian Beattie and Bill Callahan. Brian wrote the string / horn arrangements, some of which were played and recorded by Brian at his Wonder Chamber. A quartet was hired for the bulk of them. The quartet recorded in Dallas at John's place. Strings were run through Brian's reverb chamber and printed to an HD24xr, then dumped into Pro Tools HD. Not sure what mics he used in the chamber. He uses a Sony MS mic a lot of the time, but I've seen him use Oktava ribbons and some really old Shure pencil dynamics in the chamber. Brian is rather unpredictable-- he doesn't have a procedure for anything. He swaps mics a LOT so I can just guess.

As far as what mics/pres/comps John used to track, I'm not sure. I know that an SM7 was used on Bill's vocals. Pultec EQP 1a's and Tube Tech CL1's were used quite a lot at mixdown for Jim Cain.

We mixed from an MCI JH-24 with Pro-Tools HD chasing it through an API Legacy board to ATR 102 half-inch. Aurora conversion. I was mostly editing and working the PT and fixing things, patching, etc.

I can ask Brian anything you'd like if I can't answer it. I'm Brian's assistant as needed, and my services were not required for tracking. I was only there for what mixing we did in Austin.

Brian Brock · Post by **Brian Brock** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:22 am

two specific things I am curious about:
was Beattie involved in the Dallas sessions?
I assume he played the keyboard parts? Any info on the source or chain there? I really dig the parts on Too Many Birds. The syncopated bit is classic.

thanks for the info - as I said the arrangements are part of what make this album work so well.

Glory_Morris · Post by **Glory_Morris** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:37 pm

Brian said he'd log in and answer some questions.

brian beattie · Post by **brian beattie** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:56 am

Hi all
It makes me mighty happy y'all are enjoying this record. It was a pleasure to work on.
Bill is the actual, true producer of this record. Bill is the one who put the band together, chose john as an engineer, and asked me to do the post tracking arrangements.
I don't know so much about the basic tracking sessions, except it was recorded at "the track" in plano, texas. It's a lovely sounding space in a business park that feels like a "gymboree" inside. (now we find out which tape oppers have children...)
"the track" has a pretty huge tracking room, and that, along with john's ears, john's vintage drum kit and luis's drumming is the drum sound. If memory serves me correctly, that big room is about, oh, let's say, 30x65x25 feet tall or so. Very live. I believe john did an albini style 20ms predelay on a couple of sd condensers taped to the floor a ways away from the drums for far ambience. All of the basics (drums, jaime's guitar, the bass, bill's acoustic guitar (or piano) and vocals were tracked live to analog... I think it was a studer 827. Or 820.... Bill then brought me a disc with rough mixes, which I dumped into my alesis hd24 to do my overdubs and rough mockup versions of the string and horn parts so bill could hear them first, to make sure I wasn't going to ruin it. (always a distinct possibilty) I played all of the pump organ, all of the organ (except for "invocation"... Bill played that) and a little bit of guitar and piano and percussion.
After Bill approved the string and horn parts, I went up to plano and did my lame version of "conducting" and session leading for the horns and strings, with john engineering. At that point we also went through the mysterious and laborious process of dumping my tracks from the hd24 onto the analog tape. (WILD FLYING) John mixed most of it there with Bill, and he came down about a month later and mixed 2 more ("all thoughts are prey" and "Jim Cain") with Bill and me at Wire recording in austin. Then I mixed "faith void" at my studio.
"too many birds" is the big exception- It was tracked here in austin at "cacophany", engineered by eric wofford, who I think did an amazing job as well. all of that badass piano playing on "too many birds" is jonathan meiberg of shearwater, and the exquisite bass and cello playing on "too many birds" is steve bernal. John mixed that up in plano. I didn't have anything to do with that one.
Yesirree, that record was a pleasure to be involved with. Even though I was not the "producer", in some ways Bill gave me more creative freedom than I usually get when i do produce... His descriptions of what he wanted were so minimal and clear, I guess he made it easy on me. His main instruction was "make the parts Illustrative", meaning try to make the added music (as much as possible) a literal translation of the lyrics and themes. Not at all what most people would ask for in these sophisticated, ironic, post post post modern times, but what a blast to hear.
Glad you like it. If you guys have any more technical questions about the tracking, I can ask John Congleton if he wants to chime in.... Shall I?
brian

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:59 am

So cool. Thanks for chiming in on it.

Brian Brock · Post by **Brian Brock** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 3:00 pm

Awesome. Thanks.

brian beattie wrote: Glad you like it. If you guys have any more technical questions about the tracking, I can ask John Congleton if he wants to chime in.... Shall I?
brian

heck yes. I would gladly read some more about the tracking.

..
..

the Dead Milkmen!

congleton · Post by **congleton** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:45 pm

hi guys. john congleton here.

brian turned me on to the thread, thought i would say hello its my first time posting here.

what makes that record so awesome is everyone firing on all cylinders. bill and i talked super extensively about what kinda record would be cool to make sonically months before we went into the studio. we spoke about about how we knew we wanted it sound like it could have been recorded anytime between now and 1973.
we spoke about how we wanted to make the music to sound like it was happening in a narrators mind. brian was totally on the same page with this. i think for the most part we succeeded. bill gave us complete latitude and trust in the studio to take it to those places. bill is an amazing guy, so very very talented.

nuts and bolts rise.heres what i can recall from the basic tracks...

i had the drummer play on an old 69 ludwig kit. on the snare drum i think i used mainly a shure 141. bass drum i believe was an RE-20. i know it was coles 4038s on the cymbals, i cant recall what was on the toms. the room mics where not actually used much at all, with exception of a few tunes. but i believe they where neumann 260s.

bills set up never changed, it was always a u47 on his guitar and an sm7 on his voice. always. everything thing you hear on that record was completely live.
not a single punch in or overdub on him.

electric guitar guitar was recorded stereo but we usually kept in mono.

all strings where recorded mono with a coles 4038.

bass guitar, was an svt 2 with an 15" inch speaker. cant recall the mic i used.

if there are any other questions hit me with it. its fun to think back on that record. it really was a good time.

Regular Guy · Post by **Regular Guy** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:06 pm

This record is insane beauty. I haven't been this excited about an album in a LOOOOONG time. John, Brian, and anyone else involved that might read this... you guys are HEROES.

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is anyone else digging the new Bill Callahan album?

is anyone else digging the new Bill Callahan album?

Brian Beattie did work on it...

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