On The Record: Laurie Anderson, Mario J. McNulty On The Making Of “Homeland”

SOHO, MANHATTAN: Iconic NYC artist and sonic adventurer Laurie Anderson released her amazing new album, Homeland, earlier this week. Years in the making, Homeland emerged after a challenging and at-times vexing process in the studio, and very nearly never emerged at all.

“It’s this very, very weird hybrid,” says Anderson, struggling to pinpoint what ultimately makes up Homeland. “I’ve never worked on something this odd before: it was sort of a bunch of filters, a bunch of live [recordings] and a bunch of studio ideas. I’m not even sure what to call it because it’s such a bizarre collection of things.”

It started with sonic scaffolding. Anderson is credited as an engineer on Homeland, and would have to be for the way the songs are composed: they are, in effect, engineered.

“I start with many different rhythmic riffs — even though Homeland doesn’t sound particularly rhythm-driven, it really is,” she describes, when asked of her sonic palette. “By that I mean most of the songs are built on these scaffolds that get removed, and they are mostly violin filters that I’ve been building myself with a software designer named Konrad Kaczmarek. They were based originally on Eventide filters but we went further afield in building our own.”

These became the building blocks for Homeland — movements both ominous and euphoric built up underneath and around an epic narrative. And Anderson toured the work, developing it on the road, recording performances of her constantly evolving Homeland live show all over the world for three years. “That’s various versions of the show, in various tempos, in various keys,” she points out.

Along the way, she recorded with a variety of collaborators, including Tuvan throat singers and igil players of Chirgilchin, and captured improvisational sessions with NYC experimental jazz and rock musicians including Rob Burger (keyboards), Omar Hakim (drums), Kieran Hebden of Four Tet (keyboards), John Zorn (saxophone) and Antony Hegarty (vocals).

“I wanted to make a record that would really relate to the live shows,” Anderson shares. “My live rig incorporates so many tools now — soft synths, homemade pedals, vocal processing, different vocoders, the homemade software we call ‘Tide’ in homage to Eventide” — to where I can do almost anything in the live show. It’s really, really exciting and I wanted to get that feeling into the record.

“So it’s like I ‘wrote the record on the road,’ and then came back to the studio and tried to ‘record’ it, but all of those terms were sort of meaningless by that point. I thought, OK now I’ll take some of these live files and paste them together into these songs in the studio and get that live feel. And, that was beyond hard! We took some of those rhythmic elements, printed them and then tried to make a studio version and the air went out of the whole thing.

“And, I thought, No!! I really didn’t want to do something that pristinely goes from my box to your box. I [found myself] sitting there working with all these clean files thinking now what? I’m going to put fake air around them? No! That kind of air to me feels like air-conditioned air — stale air from a hotel in Tokyo that’s never been aired out. I wanted to use air that had been pumped through real places; waves that had been somewhere.

“At that point, the record budget was pretty much over and it was just me sitting with like 100,000 sound files. Here I’d been thinking I’m going to make this spontaneous live thing, and now I was digging through and labeling all these files. I truly would never recommend this to anyone. (laughs) Do not try this at home!”

HOMELAND EXCAVATION: DIGGING, COMPILING, MORE RECORDING

It’s somewhat unsurprising, for an artist who’s always so embraced technology, that the infinite possibilities of today’s methods of music production might tip the scales into the overwhelming. “I got super-depressed looking at all those files and I actually stopped working on it many times,” Anderson admits. “At that point, I was only working on it as a hobby, a couple days a month. I thought I would never finish it. And it was because of Lou [Reed] that I finished it and because of Mario [McNulty] too. Mario really hung in there, and he said it is possible to do this. He was really willing to dig into those bins, and he was really patient.”

A NYC-based engineer/producer, Mario J. McNulty had worked with Anderson before. He mixed sound for a short film she directed in ‘05. “The first time I ever spoke to Laurie, we had a really nice chat about mixing,” McNulty recalls.

“And it was so great because it was abstract and artistic — the ultimate way I like to approach things, in a totally non-conformist sense. It wasn’t ‘this is a rock mix’ where the kick drum does this, etc. It’s not of the mainstream world at all, it’s of this world that I really admire, of Laurie and Eno and Gabriel and Bowie and Talk Talk and all of these records that I’m really passionate about.”

“That’s maybe the only talk we’ve ever had about mixing, and we’ve worked on and off ever since,” he continues. “So, on Homeland, we never had to talk specifically about what the album should sound like, because I already have a good sense of what she wants: she wants beauty. And, her vocal needs to be in the right place and really only she knows where that is. I mixed the record, but she’s very, very involved in the process.”

McNulty went into Anderson’s studio in SoHo and began the process of compiling Homeland, with the expectation of beginning to mix it. “There had been a lot of different people working on it, so the material was all over the place, literally,” he describes. “On different hard drives, in different studios. Neither of us realized how spread out the project was. I consolidated it all into one location, so something could be played back that made sense to her. And by that point, she was realizing she had more work to do. It just wasn’t moving her the right way.”

Anderson put mixing on hold to do some more recording, editing, and arranging at her studio, which has been her workspace since the 80s. “She has a lot of equipment, but the main recording system there is a Pro Tools HD2 rig,” McNulty describes. “And she has a series of laptops with soft synths, vintage and modern keyboards and racks of time-based effects like her Eventide Harmonizers, which she uses in the recording process as well as in mixing.”

“Pretty much any time we would need an effect, we’d go to the Harmonizer,” says McNulty. “She’s one of the pioneers of the Harmonizer so she’s very familiar with it and even the software emulations of the Harmonizer, so we would get into all kinds of sounds with them. She’ll record violin through this really awesome stereo delay patch that she made — and she also has patches that Brian Eno made for her stored in her Harmonizer.”

As she has throughout her career, Anderson used filters to essentially create new instruments, new voices. Homeland’s “Another Day in America” uses one of her classic vocal filters to voice her male alter-ego, “Fenway Bergamot,” the darkly comic storyteller, the omniscient narrator of the Homeland live show.

“Mario’s the reason I added Fenway Bergamot to the record — we just put up a mic and improvised for awhile to see what would happen,” Anderson recalls. “And that became ‘Another Day in America.’ I’m very glad I included that because my music is about words and their rhythm, so to have that very stripped-down [piece] in the middle is kind of what I was going for as well.”

THE MIX OVERLAY: UPGRADING THE SIGNAL PATH

By the end of the summer of ’09, Anderson had finally finished recording and decided she wanted to mix the record in her own studio. “I proposed that we rent some equipment, basically do an upgrade to the studio,” says McNulty. “So I called Jim Flynn Rentals and explained how I wanted to mix analog but that I wanted to avoid all the old analog gear that I wasn’t liking in her space, like her Mackie consoles which she mainly uses for monitoring.

“We did what Jim called a “mix overlay,” McNulty relays.  “We upgraded to an HD3 system and added a Dangerous 2-BUS for analog summing, and a series of compressors — Urei, LA2As, 1176s. We also had some gear from Lou Reed. He brought over his LA2A, which is the best LA2A I’ve ever heard, and some Avalon compressors and EQs. We were able to basically bypass her patch bay and patch all of our analog compressors and EQs by hand. So it was a totally custom setup.”

McNulty also rented an A-Designs Hammer. “I used one side of this stereo EQ on Laurie’s voice, and it’s just a fantastic sound,” he adds.

They also rented an arsenal of plug-ins. “Laurie had a good collection of plug-ins but I also needed some other tools that I find really useful when mixing, like the McDSP Emerald bundle, the Crane Song tape saturation plug-ins and the Sound Toys bundle — TimeBlender, PitchBlender, and Echoboy is my favorite. They’re really useful and really fast — sometimes you need to just pull things up quickly, especially in a mix scenario. I also used the Waves SSL plug-ins and EQs, which Laurie owns, and the Sonnox EQs. For effects, I’ll use ReVibe, Waves and the Eventide Harmonizer plug-ins as well.

“We also used her hardware Harmonizers on the mix — she has special reverbs, cave reverbs, all kinds of de-tuned stuff that won’t be found in any other H3000 because they are patches that were designed either by Laurie or by Brian Eno. So that was a real treat!”

HOME-STRETCH: LOU REED, HI-FI- MONITORING, KILLER BASS!

Though Homeland had involved many people’s contributions along the way, including Roma Baran who’s credited with Reed as a producer, by the end, it was Anderson, Lou Reed and McNulty finishing the project in the mixing stage.

“That was, in a way, the hardest stage,” says Anderson. “In the beginning of a project, it’s all experimentation and great and at the end, you realize ‘oh, but we do have to eventually make something and present it to someone.’ Lou said he was going to come in and sit here in the studio with me until I was done. And I thought, ‘oh, that’s a bad idea for a couple!” (laughs) but I would truly, literally be working on it today, without that.’

“Lou is a great producer,” Anderson continues. “I’d play something and he’d say that’s done, let’s move on. And I’d say ‘No, no! It needs horns, background vocals, etc…I can’t leave that vocal on there.’ Lou is a really fascinating blend of perfectionist and purist and somebody who’s just really loose. He’d say, ‘Leave that raggy stuff in! Why would you take that out?’ And ‘This doesn’t need 17 more parts. Air can be part of it. Air can be rhythmic.’

“Every writer I know is indebted to their editor if they have a good one and same with a musician to their producer. And Mario in a lot of ways worked as a kind of producer. He wasn’t just the engineer — he would definitely express himself in a way that was so well-timed, he understood the process so well that he was never intruding but he had this way of putting his opinion in.’

They monitored Homeland on a few systems. “Laurie has her ProAc speakers that she’s used to listening on in the control room and then I added NS10s, which Lou and I would listen on,” says McNulty. “We also wanted a really hi-fi monitoring setup we could listen on, so Lou brought these huge ATC monitors over from his studio. We set them up in the live room — on foam on the floor — and there was a couch and blankets, and people would sit in there and listen on these huge 3-way monitors, which have this incredible frequency response.

“That was great — to be in the control room with the nearfield monitors and then be able to clear our minds, take two minutes and go in the other room and crank it on the big guys — see where the bass is sitting, see where the vocal is sitting.”

What was Anderson listening for? “We conceived it with a very wide sonic range,” she describes. “And I wanted scary bass. I wanted the bass to jump out and kill you! I’m so sick of hearing MP3s coming through people’s laptop speakers and you hear this tinny thing…and you think, ‘That’s the song?’ Why did I spend more than two minutes on the song if it was going to sound like that? So, I wanted to make something where if you wanted to crank it up on a huge system, you’d hear tons of colorful details and all these little things.”

Nonesuch Records released Homeland on June 22. Buy it HERE! The album is available as audio-only and as a CD+MP3+DVD (which includes the 40-minute documentary “Homeland: The Story of the Lark.” Anderson will perform “Another Day in America: Songs from Homeland & other stories” at Le Poisson Rouge, July 13. Tickets here!

Mario J. McNulty is represented by Joe D’Ambrosio Management.

Remix Laurie Anderson’s “Only an Expert” Via Indaba Music

Laurie Anderson, Nonesuch Records and Indaba Music have created an opportunity for collaborators to remix Anderson’s song “Only an Expert” from her upcoming album Homeland.

The remix will be featured on iTunes Edition of her new album, set for release on June 22.

Anderson developed many of Homeland’s songs while on the road, constantly re-working them and creating or improvising new and different versions. Instead of hiring a producer to remix the song, a remix from Indaba Music’s community seemed fitting of Anderson’s innovative album process.

Through May 13, Indaba has provided a special link for those who wish to craft and remix their own version of “Only an Expert.”

The remix submissions will be reviewed by a jury of experts, including Anderson and Lou Reed, from May 13 to May 27. Afterwards, Indaba will announce the jury’s choices of Grand Prize Winner, two Runners-Up, and the public’s choice of ten Honorable Mentions.

Those chosen will receive prizes:

(1) Grand Prize: $1,000 / Remix will be included on iTunes edition of Homeland / One year free Platinum membership to Indaba Music

(2) Runners-Up: One year free Platinum membership to Indaba Music

(10) Honorable Mentions:
One year free Pro memberships to Indaba Music / Remix streamed on Anderson’s official site / Signed deluxe package: 12-inch “Only an Expert” single and Homeland CD

Homeland is Anderson’s first studio album in ten years. She produced the album with Lou Reed and Roma Baran, working alongside engineers Mario McNulty, Pat Dillett and Marc Urselli.

Homeland features Anderson on vocals, playing the keyboard and percussion, as well as performing newly fashioned violin sounds. Her vocals can be heard through one of her many musical device inventions; this one is called “audio drag” where she reveals her male alter ego, Fenway Bergamot. He appears on the album’s cover and narrates the song “Another Day in America.”

The album also includes Tuvan throat singers and igil players of Chirgilchin; New York experimental jazz and rock players including Rob Burger (keys), Omar Hakim (drums), Kieran Hebden of Four Tet (keys), Shahzad Ismaily (percussion) Eyvind Kang (viola), Peter Scherer (keyboards), Skúli Sverrisson (bass), Ben Wittman (percussion/drums) and founder of Tzadik, John Zorn (saxophone). Antony Hegarty sings additional vocals on the album.

Indaba Music offers online tools for artists around the globe to collaborate together as a community through the web. The site offers memberships where musicians and artists can record, edit and mix tracks online while in various parts of the world through its digital audio workstation. Featured contests can be found here.

Borne of John Zorn: Marc Urselli Records NYC’s Marathon Man

The free flow of creativity from New York music force John Zorn never ceases to inspire. If he can create what must be thousands of recordings by now, and head up the extremely productive Tzadik label, then you should be able to get your own catalog moving as well.

Along for the learning right now is NYC engineer/producer Marc Urselli. This is one of the guys that’s always busy, a three-time GRAMMY winner with credits that include Les Paul, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Sting, Joss Stone, Lila Downs, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mike Patton, Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, Richie Sambora, Johnny Rzeznick (Goo Goo Dolls), ZZ Top, Sam Cooke, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, Luther Vandross, Simple Minds and a bunch more (www.marcurselli.com/music).

Being a go-to guy for Zorn, whose nonstop contributions to jazz, world sounds, and experimental music just keep on coming, keeps Urselli’s schedule even busier.

Q: I kind of think of you as having an audio “practice”. Is this correct? What are the different things you do professionally?
A: Ha ha., the doctor will see you now! Well, sometimes I do feel like a doctor. Some of my patients have serious illnesses, such as “I-suck-but-I-wanna-be-a-star”-itis or “I-can’t-sing-and-you-need-to-fix-my-voice”-it is. Or hallucinations such as “Yo-this-is-gonna-be-a-hit-man-so-you-should-work-with-me-for-free”.

Luckily, I am also blessed to work with some of the most incredible artists of our time who don’t require much or any doctoring of that kind at all. But if you like the doctor-metaphor, I guess I can say that I use my tools to make people be as healthy as possible. There must be a reason why “healthy” is synonymous with “sound”!

To answer your questions exactly, though, I do a lot of things professionally: Primarily I engineer, mix and produce records — which of course includes all the editing that is necessary to make everyone sound perfect. I also do quite a bit of live sound and touring, I do sound design for commercials, I compose, I write for some music magazines, I run my own music website and do a few other things.

Q: Seems like everyone I know these days is doing either just one thing, or a wide variety of projects. Are you primarily based out of East Side Sound, where I first met you? Why do you like to work at that facility?
A: I am a freelancer and have worked in several studios, but if the client leaves the choice to me I always choose to work at EastSide Sound because it’s just the best studio in town.

I’ve worked at other studios in NYC and outside NYC, and there is no place I know of that has the amount of isolation – seven isolated rooms with line of sight — and the amount of gear that EastSide has. Plus. EastSide has a super cool and chill vibe that musicians respond very well to. The combination of recording spaces and quality (and quantity) of gear is unique.

Also EastSide Sound has a Harrison board, which is one of the most amazing and best- sounding boards I worked on, which lets me do mixes in the analog domain with total automation — beyond just faders, I’m talking EQs, pans, reverb sends, dynamics etc… and total digital recall — so that I can recall an analog mix a year later within seconds).

In addition to all of that I have some of my gear there — Focal monitors, JZ microphones, Rode microphones, McDSP plugins, IK Multimedia plugins, etc… — so I’m comfortable and I feel at home. It’s just a great hybrid of vintage gear, modern technology as well as old-school studio design and new-school philosophy. EastSide has been around since 1973 and is doing OK considering the times we are in and all the studios closing, So obviously we’re doing something right over there, you know?

Q: I agree about that Harrison board, I really enjoyed mixing two Impossible Objects songs through it with Fran Cathcart over there. So how would you describe the musical space that John Zorn currently occupies? What kind of artist is he, and what does his body of work represent in the canon?
A: Zorn to me is one of the most interesting composers and musicians of our time — I absolutely love his music and love working with him. He’s a true genius, and his work ethic is second to none. He is eclectic, prolific, focused and dedicated to the music. Everything he does, from his own music, to the Tzadik label he runs to his music venue, The Stone, he does with love and out of love for the music. His body of work is incredible — hundreds of records to his name — and his strength is probably in the variety of his composition.

What I love about working with him is that it is always different, always exciting. He writes jazz in its many variations and flavors, rock/metal, classical music, avantgarde/ experimental music and more often than not his music is a mixture of all of the above, which is incredibly interesting.

I’ve recorded and mixed more than a dozen of his albums now, and in doing so have found myself employing tried-and-true mic techniques on jazz quartets, recording chamber-like string trios, doing vocals-only albums, capturing rare and out-of-the-ordinary percussion instruments and other sound-making devices. Or I’ve been bouncing my head up and down in the control room while tracking double drum sets, a distorted bass, screaming vocals and Zorn’s incredible sax playing.

On top of that Zorn uses some of the most incredible musicians out there and it’s a pleasure for me to even just watch them play, let alone record them. I love the fact that there’s so much variety because I grew up listening to all sorts of different music, and I’m always excited about every record I get to do with him. Zorn’s simply the man!

Q: When you first told me you had worked recently with John Zorn, I thought you had worked on a finished album. But you referred to your recordings with him as an “ongoing collaboration”. Can you explain how it’s working?
A: Well, like I said, John is very prolific and we enjoy working together very much. We first worked together on his album The Dreamers – one of my favorite to this date — and we’ve worked together ever since, which means about 15-20 records now.

You have to understand: the man is totally dedicated to his music and the musicians he uses have incredible amounts of talent. This translates into relatively short sessions. I think the longest session I did with him was three days of tracking and two days of mixing, and the shortest session was one 12-hour day of recording and mixing 10 songs!
The average is around 1-2 days for tracking and one day for mixing.

We’ve got the system down and we work fast, no breaks, no food, no messing around. I know what he wants and what he likes and I strive to make it perfect. I get there hours before he comes in to set up everything so that he can come in, sit down and get to work teaching the first song to his musicians. By the way, they never get to practice the music before they come in for the session. They learn it on the spot, try it a few times and then record it in one or two takes, sometimes three… and all of this sight-reading extremely difficult sheet music and soloing on top of crazy time signatures!

John is surrounded by talented people and we are kind of a team and everyone in the team cares about the music and takes it seriously. Kaz does the label, Heung Heung does the artwork etc… Everyone gives their 200% and when I work for him I give my 200%, because those are some of the sessions I really look forward to doing.

Q: How does such a high volume of consistent output affect the way you engineer and produce? Both working with him, and in turn working with other artists?
A: I would say it affects it very positively when working with him because there is a level of trust, knowledge and comfort that might not be there with an artist you never worked with before. In other words, with John I know what he wants, so I can give him what he wants very quickly and efficiently. If he had to work with a new engineer every time it most likely wouldn’t be as fluid and smooth as it is.

Other artists are unaffected by all of this, but needless to say, the more I work with any artist the better I get at what I do and the faster I get at what I do. EastSide has become second nature so it’s really easy for me to get good sounds there, because I know the rooms, the outboard, the mics, so well.

It goes without saying that my Pro Tools chops are sharp and I can fly on the machine doing all the transport operation, editing and automation at lighting speed, which clients love, because it saves them time, which equals money and makes them sound good. I hate to say this, but speed has become an important factor in today’s industry — but this plays to my advantage because of how fast I am.

Q: What are some highlight duets/musical collaborations of Zorn’s from recent sessions? Tell us about recording the vocal four-piece, Mycale.
A: There’s been many. He always uses amazing players like bassists Greg Cohen, Trevor Dunn and Shanir Blumenkranz; guitarist Marc Ribot; drummers Joey Baron, Ben Perowsky, Kenny Wollesen, also a vibraphonist; percussionist Cyro Baptista; pianists Rob Burger, Jamie Saft and Uri Caine, and so many more: Erik Friedlander, Carol Emmanuel, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith and the list goes on. We did a record with Phantomas/Faith No More singer Mike Patton, which was pretty amazing too.

The Mycale record was an interesting one — it was one of two vocals-only CDs of John’s music that I recorded. Mycale is a group of four talented young women who took some of Zorn’s music and arranged it for their voices, on their own, over the course of a year. It’s a very interesting record that brings together four different voices, styles and even languages!

We recorded another similar record with a different group of singers that became the music for French director Arno Bouchard’s film The Last Supper. John does a lot of soundtrack work and this latter group of amazing singers is the same that does the live performance of “Shir Ha-Shirim/The Song of Songs”, which is one of Zorn’s many musical projects for which I had the pleasure of doing live sound in a few occasions.

Q: Do you also work with the artists on his label? What kind of music does he distribute?
A: I have worked — as in recorded and mixed — several albums for Tzadik. Mostly it was artists based in New York, except in one or two cases. John releases and distributes the music he likes, which is how it should be for every label out there.

Q: Do you still maintain Chain D.L.K.? What is that, and how did it inform your work as an audio pro?
A: I do still run it. Chain D.L.K. is a music magazine for electronic, industrial, avantgarde, experimental music. I founded it in 1994 as a paper magazine and now it is online only at www.chaindlk.com and has over 30,000 visits per month.

Chain D.L.K. has really nothing to do with my work in the audio field. It is not about technical information, but rather music news, reviews, interviews, forums etc… It is a completely non-profit venture — in fact I lose money every month out of my pocket — but I do it to support the music and the artists, and to offer exposure to artists who otherwise might not get as much. I do it out of pure love for the music.

Q: You are originally from Switzerland, and then grew up in Italy before making it to American shores. Why do you enjoy being NYC-based? What makes this a great place to work, and what’s also making it challenging?
A: NYC is the greatest city on earth. Just walking down its streets inspires me. There are a few other cities I feel that strongly about, but NYC is at the top of my list and I don’t think I could live anywhere else.

Obviously it is a great place to work populated by some of the most amazing artists out there. Of course it is also challenging, it’s a tough city, it makes you or breaks you, and there’s competition for everything. But I like the challenge, it keeps me sharp and keeps me moving forward.

Q: Word. Is it true you can go kite surfing in Brooklyn? What’s it like to kite surf? Inquiring minds want to know.
A: Ha ha, I love kitesurfing! We go to several places in Brooklyn and also Long Island. Kitesurfing is equal part rush of adrenaline and equal part zen-like experience. You are out there alone with the elements, which can be very relaxing and spiritual in a sense, but you can also rip great air, pull off air and board tricks, surf waves, explore the canals between the grass islands of Long Island’s Great South Bay and hurt yourself in more ways than you can imagine!

Q: OK, I really want to come with you sometime. What’s next for you?
A: A kitesurfing trip to Brazil, a new record with Zorn (for which we start tracking four hours after I land at JFK airport from my 17 hour redeye return flight from Brazil), two other Tzadik records in December, a possible second half of tour with Marianne Faithfull in January (we did a first leg two months ago), a Masada live marathon and hopefully more interesting records of beautiful music for the world to enjoy!

Q: Gee, sounds awful. Anything else you want to add?
A: You tell me, I feel like I bored you and everyone else enough with my chatter. I am just enthusiastic about music, I love music deeply and I care about what I do and do it as best as I can. I wish there were more amazing artists like Zorn out there and that more people were into music for the right reasons and with the right attitude. Music is
the only universal language and I wanna learn to speak all of its dialects! – David Weiss