STACK #225 July 2023

MUSIC FEATURE

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CHRIS TOWNEND Frying Pan Studios @ Mona (TAS) Chris Townend is producer, studio designer, and sound engineer at new recording facility Frying Pan Studios, nestled within the iconic Mona gallery (Museum of Old and New Art) in Hobart, Tasmania.

What's the difference between a producer and a sound engineer, and does one person often occupy both roles for a particular music project? The term 'producer' is nebulous, but generally a producer is focused on the music, performances and overall outcome of a recording, working closely with the artists. An engineer is the technician that captures and records the sounds to get the perfect sound for the project. The more experienced are able to combine the producer

personal collection? A decent collection of my fave recording equipment and musical instruments now resides at Frying Pan, for all to create with. There is a large viewing window in one of Frying Pan's walls where Mona's visitors can witness music-making in action. How do you imagine this will affect the music that's being made (as any private isolation of the studio experience will be collapsed)? So far it has been well received by bands, and we also have movable acoustic screens for

and sound engineer's roles and skill sets.

Why is the REDD.17 console, which lived at London's Abbey Road Studios for more than 20 years across the '60s and '70s, such a hallowed piece of equipment? The Beatles and Pink Floyd having used it makes it a holy grail recording console. Today, it is still a masterpiece of amazing sounding recording technology. Does a lot of the gear available for artists to play with at Frying Pan come from your own

artists that find it distracting and prefer to be in a more creatively private, personal zone. How do you find being spontaneously viewed affects your own role? It was a little odd at first, but I am enjoying watching the enthusiastic gallery guests seeing an album being made. It's a privilege to be at the helm. I am now an art specimen. ZKR

PJ HARVEY FINDS HER BEWITCHING NEW NICHE

W hen the touring cycle for her wrapped in 2017, PJ Harvey felt lost. Was it time for a career shift? But then the liberation she felt through making music for its own sake – the beginnings of album number ten – reignited a spark: “I still love this so much, that it's like it keeps me alive,” she realised. I Inside the Old Year Dying was inspired by previous album, 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project , finally

God?... ‘Love me tender’/ Are his words.” This record was partially improvised alongside Harvey's longtime creative collaborators of nearly 30 years, Flood and John Parish. Harvey shares in her press release, “The studio was set up for live play.” Powerfully

voice” – conjures a vexed spirit wailing into the abyss. The Nether-edge ’s haunting undercurrent evokes magical glass harp. Clamorous, cacophonous closer A Noiseless Noise eventually pares right back to gentle guitar noodling, birdsong, insects buzzing and Harvey singing in bewitched, hushed tones. According to the artist,

Orlam , Harvey's 2022 coming of-age novel-in-verse, which is written in the Dorset dialect and set in an imaginary village called Underwhelem. And one of Orlam ’s characters – Wyman-Elvis, the ghost of a Christ-like wounded soldier – appears in several album tracks, symbolising “the thin line between life and death”. Throughout Lwonesome Tonight, Harvey’s vocals float, high-pitched and eerie: “Are you Elvis?/ Are you

evocative imagery – “bedraggled angels”,

“chalky children”, “soldier’s tears” – gives Harvey’s lyricism a literary quality, and sounds from audio libraries and field recordings add cinematic flair. Opener Prayer at the Gate – for which Flood encouraged Harvey to sound much older than she is, and “have something desperate in [her]

her latest set of songs offer “a resting place, a solace, a comfort, a balm." It was never gonna be a straightforward listen; this is Polly Jean Harvey, after all. But you'll be rewarded handsomely if you surrender to the visceral, soul-restoring, melancholy beauty of I Inside the Old Year Dying. Bryget Chrisfield

I Inside the Old Year Dying by PJ Harvey is out Jul 7 via Partisan/ Liberator.

26 JULY 2023

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