Headliner Magazine Issue 33

ISSUE #33

SUP

TIVE CO

PORT

THE CR

MM

I

NG

EA

MAGAZINE

UNI T Y

LENNON STELLA

COUNTRY ROADS FROM NASHVILLE TO L.A.

GALANTIS

SWEDISH EDM GIANTS TALK LIVE STREAMING

LILY MOORE

ISSUE 32 | £3.95 UK/$6.95 USA/$7.95 CANADA

BUSKING HER WAY TO NEO-SOUL PERFECTION

BLACK PUMAS PSYCHEDELIC SOUL SENSATION

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Contents #33 Cover Story

P26 / Black Pumas 08

40

We chat to this breakthrough British artist about her slick neo-soul sound.

We’re on set with sound mixer, Steve Morrow, who worked wonders on capturing audio for Ford v Ferrari.

LILY MOORE 10

DUKE DUMONT

Grammy nominations and over two billion streams. Meet Duke Dumont.

12

LENNON STELLA

Life after Nashville is looking rosy for this talented songstress, whose impressive debut album is out now.

16

FORD V FERRARI

44

AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD

We find out why these guys are a firm favourite with the Floyd fraternity.

46

THE TWO POPES

Grammy-winning composer, Bryce Dessner, says scoring with the LCO at Abbey Road was a perfect combo.

GALANTIS

50

18

We talk Sundance Film Festival and the creative process with this New York-based emerging composer.

We catch up with the Swedish EDM giants just before they play their first virtual show to thousands of fans.

NICK PERRI

This respected American singer and guitarist chats through his musical story and perfect guitar setup.

20

XYLO ARIA

JAY WADLEY

52

RECORDING VOCALS

Four aspiring artists perform live on location using DPA’s new 2028 mics.

54

It’s all about education for Xylo Aria as she takes us through her Music Production for Women movement.

THEATRE FOCUS

22

56

ALAN MOULDER

An iconic producer who talks about mixing for Led Zep, and how Assault & Battery Studios is still at his core.

26

COVER STORY: BLACK PUMAS

We descend on London’s Rough Trade Records for a secret show with Grammy-nominated US duo, Black Pumas, whose psychedelic soul sound is making some serious waves.

30

LYDIA NIGHT

The Regrettes frontwoman talks empowement, songwriting, and her love for the Fender Next initiative.

We explore the huge audio expansion at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.

ALICE MERTON

We chat to German-Canadian artist, Alice Merton, about riding the No. 1 wave by releasing more new music.

58

NAINITA DESAI

This Oscar-nominated, BAFTAwinning composer talks us through her musical journey so far.

60

ZEDS DEAD

A Canadian electronic music duo with cool production techniques and a pretty rigorous touring schedule.

63

DYLAN DUNLAP

32

L.A-based artist, Dylan Dunlap, talks about his songwriting process and discovering he had autism as an adult.

We speak to this revered composer to understand more about his workflow.

66

34

It feels like a mini explosion for James Ratcliffe and his band, who recently signed to Jonny Greenwood’s label.

DUSTIN O’HALLORAN

SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS

Our friends in Ibiza chat to DJ, Betto, about concocting a new genre.

36

ON TOUR WITH BJÖRK

We talk to John Gale about using immersive audio to make Björk’s live shows even more spectacular.

MOA MOA

68

JERRY HARVEY

JH Audio’s inspiring founder reveals how his streamlined team is still manufacturing product daily.

38

70

The outspoken and Caps Lock defying Canadian songstress talks to us about her latest single.

One of three BRIT rising star 2020 nominees, Beabadoobee has voice, guitar, and attitude all rolled into one.

WHO IS MELANIE?

HEADLINER | ISSUE #33

BEABADOOBEE

#33 From the Editor

“It started in the studio, versus some live bands that eventually go and make an album...”

Black Pumas

Welcome to Issue 33 of Headliner, featuring cover stars, Black Pumas – a Grammy-nominated psychedelic soul band with a supernatural sound and connection. We hotfoot it to London’s Rough Trade Records to meet the formidable musical force destined to fill out much bigger venues. In the USA, we catch up with a locked-down Lennon Stella about life after [hit TV series] Nashville, and revealing her true self in her new album.

On the emerging front, we chat to Brits Rising Star nominee, Beabadoobee about breaking away from her family’s wish for her to become a doctor, becoming a YouTube sensation, and how Fender are championing up and coming guitar artists. In London, rising star Lily Moore gets candid about the inspiration behind her new mixtape, while Regrettes frontwoman Lydia Night talks female empowerment, stage fright, and playing her dream gig.

In the studio, Alan Moulder explains why Miloco officially taking over Assault & Battery studios doesn’t mean he’s severing ties with the recording spaces; American composer Dustin O’Halloran admits he said yes to too many projects after his Oscar nomination for 2017 film, Lion, while EDM giants Galantis open up about a world first for them.

In live sound, we catch up with FOH engineer John Gale about bringing Björk’s ambitious tour vision to life using d&b’s Soundscape system, while the tribute act to rule all tribute acts, Australian Pink Floyd, explain why Austrian Audio is rocking their world.

On set, Headliner learns why crafting the score for Netflix film, The Two Popes – starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce – was a dream come true for Bryce Dessner, who cut his teeth on score-composing on The Revenant, while Ford v Ferrari’s production sound mixer reveals the must-have kit for capturing Christian Bale’s dialogue.

We recently announced our expansion into North America with the launch of Headliner USA, in addition to our brand new Headliner Radio where we chat to self isolating artists, musicians, music professionals and other creatives from their respective homes. Head over to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Deezer to take a listen.

Alice Gustafson Deputy Editor

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Contributors Will Hawkins, Rebecca Herbert-Thorp, Henry Sarmiento, Jon Tessier.

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LILY MOORE

Lily Moore, a British singer-songwriter we’re sure to hear, well – more of – has already achieved so much at just 21 years old. Headliner grabs 10 minutes with the singer to talk about her latest release – and why it’s sometimes awkward to perform in front of her mum.

Words Rebecca Herbert-Thorp

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’m very happy right now,” exclaims neo-soul sensation, Lily Moore. Her enthusiasm for life is tangible as she arrives at the hotel on a dreary day to speak with us; even chants from a crowd of merry men on a stag do and train delays can’t dampen her spirits.

At the tender age of just 21, while others in her peer group are preparing for final exams, working fulltime, or maybe backpacking through Thailand, she has released two EPs: Not That Special, and I Will Never Be, has supported George Ezra, James Bay, Tom Walker, and most recently, James Arthur on tour, was the sold out headliner for the iconic 100 Club in London, and has most recently released an 11 track mix tape, appropriately named the More Moore Mixtape.

Born in West London where she now resides again after moving to Brighton as a child, Moore released her first single, Not That Special, in February 2018, followed by an EP of the same name. Although she tells Headliner that success didn’t quite happen overnight: “I worked in pubs in Brighton when I was 15. I went to music college and then I met my managers. I eventually got signed and moved back to London, and I’ve been doing what I love ever since, so I’m very happy.”

Moore attributes her fearless confidence when performing live to her experience of busking, which is something she feels every musician should try their hand at: “I think it’s something everyone should do if they want to gig. It’s a rite of passage in a way, and it gets you used to performing in front of people. I learnt a lot from busking.”

Moore was no stranger to music from a young age, growing up in a musical household where her mum introduced her to artists such as Madonna, while her dad inspired her interest in soulful legends like Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Aretha Franklin.

These influences are notable in her style of writing and singing: the one song Moore wishes she had written is Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come (a song which she recently covered to lift spirits during the coronavirus pandemic).

With a musical knowledge of an era many her age wouldn’t have any awareness of, Moore recognises how artists like Franklin – her all-time favourite – have significantly influenced her approach to her sound: “That’s probably a big reason why I sound the way I do.”

Throughout Moore’s latest album release, she exhibits a stripped back sincerity. Headliner couldn’t help but point out that she has a voice and style akin to Adele and Amy Winehouse – a comparison Moore gladly accepts with humility: “I don’t ever get bored of that,” she says. “I’m definitely flattered. They’re all amazing and artists I’ve looked up to.”

Recently, Moore achieved one of her wildest dreams while touring with James Arthur - playing the O2 Arena.

“I remember sitting watching Adele years ago and leaving and hoping that one day I would get to stand there and sing my heart, and I did! And it was the best night ever!”

Moore’s honest and raw approach to her lyrics is all about connection; she is refreshingly honest with her mirror approach to storytelling – insisting on connecting to the subject matter, whether that’s through personal experience, relating to a friend’s situation, or sometimes simply “venting” about something she’s feeling when navigating her way through unchartered waters of life and love.

“I think all of them are from my experiences, or

something a friend has gone through,” she agrees. “Yes, I sometimes sing about something maybe I cannot feel, or write about something that they’ve spoken to me about,” she admits. “As long as I know what I’m talking about, or I feel like I know what I’m talking about...she trails off. “I just know I have to care.”

This is apparent in her self-deprecating lyrics – poignantly present in her favourite penned track to date, I Will Never Be: “I will never be that one thing you would try to save / and if your lost words are her name / least I’d know I tried in vain.”

The stories throughout Moore’s work vary in themes and shades of emotion: Now I Know is a heartfelt track about missed opportunities – and is one of the first she’d ever written – while Over Here is about getting over an ex.

Moore admits that writing some tracks were easy, while others were a little harder to pen – not to mention awkward when performing in front of her mum: Understandable. Over Here opens with: “I wish that you would fuck one of my friends in our bed / and then tell me after how she’s the best you’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, I have to say, ‘sorry mum!’ for the first line,” she laughs. “When I was writing this song, I was in a weird mood. It was a fun one to write. I just thought, ‘fuck it!’ I’m just going to say all the things I want to say! So, I did.”

Although singing some lines in front of her mum may curl her toes at times, connecting live with her fans on tour is very important: Moore recently collaborated with Maverick Sabre on Motown-esque track, In-between – a song that pays homage to the genre’s steady tempo, strings and pop vocal stylings, with a sprinkling of gospel influence thrown in. Always writing from the heart, Moore confirms it’s about choosing between someone you love and your career.

Reflecting on working with Sabre, she full of awe: “I couldn’t think of anyone better. As much as I love all the old amazing soul singers, when I first heard Maverick’s voice, I thought he was one of the best male voices I’ve ever heard in a soulful, modern way. I was so chuffed when he said he’d do it. It’s honest, old school, pure soul music.”

Upon talking further, Moore becomes reflective about the risk of making such a bold soulful record in the current musical climate: “It’s been a good test. I wasn’t sure if I could get away with an old school song. This is just pure soul music. It’s not a lie. It’s not trying to be ‘cool’ in any way. It’s an honest song, so the fact it’s gone down so well is really nice.”

It went down very well indeed: In-between was Clara Amfo’s tune of the week on Radio 1, whilst also gaining support from Radio 2’s Jo Whiley and Trevor Nelson.

Moore’s enthusiasm for music and life is infectious: “I’m in a banging mood now because I’ve just seen the hotel has a pool, and I packed my costume! I’m very fucking happy with that”.

Headliner can’t predict what Moore’s next move will be, aside from possibly a swim, but musically, audiences can be sure to look forward to her ongoing candid journey, and perhaps a few four letter words thrown in for good measure.

“Exactly! I’m going to keep writing my story and the truth about growing up. Well, as much as I know at the moment,” she grins.

www.lilymoore.co.uk

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DUKE DUMONT

“Anything I’m experiencing right now needs to be in perspective,” Duke Dumont says. “I’m out here in Los Angeles, and I’ve been kind of house-bound since 2006 anyway.” There is a joke going around the music producer community that self-isolation is a producer’s lifestyle of choice anyway — but it’s nonetheless refreshing to hear that the trailblazing Duke Dumont is staying positive and grateful in the midst of the Coronavirus lockdown.

Words Adam Protz

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ith two billion streams to his name, a number of Grammy nominations, and scoring huge success with platinum-selling UK number one singles Need U (100%) and I Got U, London-born Duke has also produced hits such as Swish Swish for Katy Perry and worked with the likes of Nicki Minaj and Mark Ronson.

But with all that being said, global events are certainly a bit of an upheaval for this globetrotting DJ, with the what-would-have-been festival season looming.

“Coachella has been put back until October,” Dumont says. “Same with Splendour In The Grass in Australia. I had an L.A. show with between 5,000 and 6,000 people put back until the end of August. But honestly, I can’t complain about these things. We all just have to stay indoors right now, keep safe and get through this.”

Dumont recently dropped his Love Song EP, an epic three-track showcase with songs that will feature on his upcoming debut album, Duality. Partly thanks to some huge-sounding Moog synthesizers, Duke is achieving some of his biggest sounds yet, and that’s saying something.

“I’ve been working on this project for 18 months,” he says. “If I only ever did one album, I’d be happy with this one. This hasn’t been about making a song for the radio, it’s been about making a body of music that I’m extremely happy with. I’m not really worried about whether it does well or not.

“Another goal with this project was to be able to perform it all live. With these new songs, I was picturing the visuals on the screens at the festivals, how it would translate to God knows how many thousands of people. I only want to make music now that is going to have some kind of emotional effect within a live context. That’s why I made this album to be performed live. A different approach could have been aiming to make the most-streamed album of the year — and that would have meant making three-minute songs, all in C Major or G. For some people, that’s what they want to do and it works for them. But I like music too much to just try and be the biggest act in the world.”

For Duke Dumont, the live show is an integral part of an artist’s legacy, which is why he’s now so focussed on it.

“I might get criticised for saying this, but I don’t think you can really be classed as an ‘act’ if you can’t perform your own music for an hour,” he says. “When an artist spends a decade making records and can then go out and deliver a

90-minute set, that’s the ultimate for me. You look at the Chemical Brothers, their live show is just unbelievable.

Bicep, Bonobo, Four Tet; these are all artists who have such an impact when they perform live.”

I ask how the new album came to be named Duality, to which Dumont replies: “I’ll go out on the road and perform to thousands of people, and then when I get home, I’ll spend six weeks alone making music. I do self-isolation with or without a quarantine! So the name touches on those two extremes that I’m always living by. And on the deeper level, there are threads of the nature of duality throughout the record.

And when we drop the artwork, there’s a little easter egg on there about the meaning of the music too. Any budding cryptologist should be able to work it out!”

Going thereabouts from cryptology to talk of his studio set up, we start off with plugins, with his feelings that so many producers are ‘all just using the same stuff now’: “So part of my plugin selection is to get away from that!

I do have a pseudo-master chain that I’ve set up, which is maybe a bit too loud, but I love over-compressed music anyway. I love Machine Gun by Portishead, and that has to be one of the most compressed songs you’re ever going to hear!

“What I have been using for about 12 years now is the Sony Oxford Sonnox plugins. I’m just so used to working with them now, especially the EQ. It really helps me to lock in an idea as quickly as possible. I also love the Limiter, and also the Inflator, which adds a slight harmonic distortion, and in turn sweetens the mid to upper range sounds, and adds a fantastic brightness. I haven’t found that in any other plugins; it manages to add a kind of gloss to things.

I also highly recommend house or club acts look into MS Processing. That would be my one big piece of advice.”

Duality came out on April 17th, and Dumont’s desire that it has a lasting legacy amongst all the EDM sugarhits is looking like a strong bet, on the evidence of the music released from it so far. It’s a wonderful ambition in a genre so often dominated by quick singles crafted just for the charts — this ambition and album should see Duke Dumont transcend into non-duality. www.dukedumont.com www.sonnox.com

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Lennon Stella

LENNON STELLA Lennon Stella is best known for starring in the hit TV show, Nashville.

Headliner catches up with the singer-songwriter as she anticipates her debut solo album release, Three. Two. One – containing her most honest and personal work to date.

Words Alice Gustafson | Photos Aidan Zamiri

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t’s a weird time to be putting out an album,” begins Lennon Stella, speaking to Headliner from her Nashville home. “There’s been a lot of shifts and a lot of changes that have needed to happen. It’s a very strange time because I’ve been working towards this album for about three years. But I think in a way, it’s actually a special thing because really all everybody has to do right now is listen to music and try to get inspired. So me putting out an album right now will hopefully give a little piece of light somewhere. I think we’re all just having to make the best out of the current situation – there’s nothing we can really do about it!”

Born in Canada but now residing in Nashville, Stella is a recognisable face for fans of both country music and glossy TV dramas, having starred as Maddie Conrad (alongside her younger sister Maisy as Daphne) in the hit musical drama series, Nashville, from 2012 to 2018.

After securing parts on the show, the sisters had to try to increase their profiles so they could apply for work visas, although they could never have anticipated how quickly they would be able to achieve this. Lennon and Maisy uploaded an a capella cover of Robyn’s Call Your Girlfriend to YouTube, accompanied by makeshift percussion in the form of two empty tubs: the video went viral overnight.

“We literally had never done anything for YouTube before, so it was very, very bizarre and random because everything was happening at once,” she remembers. “I mean, I was 12 and my sister was eight. We had no previous success or anything – everything happened really quick!”

Growing up on screen whilst her profile simultaneously thrived had a huge impact on Stella’s life: “My whole life was completely changed in a second.

Obviously in being part of the show itself, but the cast and the crew also changed my life so much. We moved from Canada to Nashville when I was about nine, so we didn’t know anyone here. The show became our family – these people raised us. It was an amazing experience that lasted from age 12 to 18, and those were pivotal years of my life.”

LIFE AFTER NASHVILLE

After leaving the show, Stella kickstarted her solo career with an EP in 2018, and is currently focusing on the release of her debut album, Three. Two. One. With a big country

following from her years on Nashville, will her fans be expecting more of the same, or are they happy to embrace a new sound?

“There’s still some people that have followed along since the beginning of Nashville that are definitely expecting more of a folk/country album,” she answers. “On the show, I was a character making music, so that obviously wasn’t me making music. So it is a totally different thing to have freedom and put out music as an artist, versus your character putting out music. So it’s very separate for me, but I understand for the fans, there’s lines that are blurred. It’s cool that people stick around and are supportive regardless, you know?”

When writing her solo album, Stella didn’t actively try to get away from her country image, instead letting her natural instincts guide her as her own voice emerged naturally: “There was instant freedom after leaving the show, although I was writing during the show,” she corrects herself. “I would be filming, and then on the weekends I’d write, so I had so much time to explore and figure out what I liked or didn’t like.

“I had to wait to put music out just due to being on the show, and I was given so much time because of that. When the time came, I just knew what I wanted to do and what direction I wanted to go in. It definitely wasn’t me wanting to change or be different, it was just natural and whatever I got locked into; it felt like my sound.”

SISTER ACT

The Stella sisters share a tight bond, reinforced all the more by their years of working together. Since going solo, Stella shares that her younger sister still plays a key role in her musical career, as a confidant and source of inspiration, and that they remain fiercely close: “It’s nice because she remains the most consistently important person to me – creatively and musically,” she asserts. “Every song I write, immediately she’s the first person I send it to, and then I get her response on it. I respect her opinion so much, and we’re still so collaborative.

Even though she’s not on every song with me, she’s the most collaborative with me. She’s just so creative and is very much a part of all the music I make. It was never a split – as much as it looked like it was to the world. She’s so, so included, she’s even singing on songs on the new album.”

Headliner 02 13 Headliner

“I think we all just need a pause; we’re literally forced apart - there’s nothing you can do. There’s a bit of me that feels at peace with it...”

And as a sister, is she painfully honest in her feedback?

“Exactly that,” she laughs. “She has no reason to BS me – she’s very honest. She’ll straight up tell me if she thinks anything doesn’t sound like me. She’s a very good person to bounce off first.”

Three. Two. One was released on April 24, and her debut album has been something Stella has wanted to release for as long as she remembers: “With an album, you can really get to know somebody, and put out different parts of myself.

It’s what you can’t squeeze into an EP or a single; it’s a bit more experimental and I was able to explore a little more. I’m getting to know myself through the whole process; I think you can learn a lot about me from it.”

Stella’s favourite track on the album is a song called Weakness, which she says is her most honest work to date: “Maisy is on the track, and I think everyone will understand why it’s special to me when they listen,” she says. “It’s probably one of the most honest things I’ve ever been a part of writing, and then having Maisy sing on it just makes it that much more. I wrote this song about her, and it’s followed by Huey Lewis, which is actually like an interlude, which is also written about her.

“The two songs combined end up being about nine minutes long, and they are all about Maisy, and our relationship. There was some tough, tough stuff going on, so I wrote it as an escape for her. It’s a very personal part of the album, and 14 Headliner

that’s probably the most special song to me.”

The album’s lead single, Jealous, was written

by Lennon alongside Finneas O’Connell, Justin Gammella, Ruslan Odnoralov, Emily Weisband, Erin McCarley, and produced by Joel Little, with additional production by Ruslan Odnoralov.

SUPER FANS

On working with Finneas, Stella found they had an immediate connection: “He’s amazing,” she enthuses. “I’m such a fan of his – he is very, very cool. It’s interesting because he was telling me that he and Billie [Eilish] listened to mine and Maisy’s covers way back when – so we’ve both known about each other for so long.

“It’s very cool when you can actually meet up and draw a line completely back, and that was from when I was 12! My growth as a human has been documented everywhere online, so it was really cool to get in the room with him and write – it was an instant connection.”

Stella has played the guitar since she was young, and says that her absolute favourite is a Peter Barton, or a Nashguitars model for electric.

“For everyday use, my favourite would be a Martin [guitar]; I’ve always played mine since I was a kid – they have a very warm sound which I’m always very drawn to.”

Before the C-word wreaked havoc on the world, Stella announced her North American headlining tour, which was due to run in 28

cities across North America. A short time later, like every artist, all gigs were cancelled for the foreseeable future. Stella says she is choosing to find the positives in the situation, and is taking this opportunity to press pause: “I’ve read things online that have given me so much hope,” she says. “There’s this weird thing, because as much as it’s the worst possible thing that could be happening, there is this need for a pause in the world. With social media, everything is so rapid and everyone’s moving so fast – we’re all moving double time to make it look like we’re doing even more than we are! I think we all just need a pause.

“We’re literally forced apart – there’s nothing you can do. There’s a bit of me that feels at peace with it. It’s a horrible time of course, but trying to think of it as a way to take a pause has kept me sane throughout the whole thing.

“All of a sudden, we’re all just humans – no matter what level you’re at, no matter if you’ve got fame or money. All of a sudden, people are at the exact same level – we’re all sitting in our houses and everyone is just equal, you know? It’s the togetherness and unity that I think is really cool.

Obviously, what’s happening is terrible and we all would rather it not be happening, but the way everyone is coming together is so nice. I think the world needed a restart button.”

www.lennonstella.com

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GALANTIS UNCOVERED Swedish EDM conquerors, Galantis, are about to play a ‘virtual reality show’, a concert on their YouTube channel that will be broadcast for free to hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide. “It’s the first time for us doing this, in about two hours time,” Christian Karlsson (who forms one half of the duo, alongside Linus Eklöw) says. “It’s a brand new thing for us, and it’s been a long time in the works. It’s exciting and people seem to be really up for it. It’s a way for us to reach out to a lot of people that couldn’t see us at a festival, or in a country we haven’t had a chance to play. We can see people are logged in and waiting for us to hit the stage!”

Words Adam Protz

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alantis have launched a huge, dance festival-headlining career off the back of monstrous hits such as Runaway (U & I), racking up billions of streams. They’ve just dropped their third album, Church, that sees some massive collaborations with John Newman, One Republic… oh, and Dolly Parton.

“We’ve had amazing feedback,” Karlsson says. “We’re always nervous. Of course, you want your fans to like your music!

But you also need to stay true to yourself. So working on something so heavily for 2 years and then releasing it, it’s a delicate thing!”

It’s interesting to hear the word ‘delicate’, considering both the fact that the music of Galantis is so earthshuddering, and that their fans always immediately eat it up.

But it’s a nice reminder that even the most successful artists know these things are never guaranteed.

As mentioned earlier, Galantis featured a certain singer-songwriter named Dolly Parton on Church. Not known best for recording top-lines for EDM bangers, I exclaim what a coup this is for the producer duo to have secured Parton’s services.

“It was just a crazy idea we had a long time ago,” Karlsson says. “We just wanted to see if she’d be into it! We didn’t even have a song, so whenever we came up with something, we’d be asking ourselves, ‘is this the one?’ And of course, Dolly Parton isn’t in the phone book [laughs], so it was a case of getting in touch with her.

“But she was super into it! We spoke to her on the phone, and she immediately started bouncing off ideas, lyrics and melodies. Then she asked, ‘so shall I come to you? Or do you want to come to me?’ And we said ‘we’ll come to you, of course!’ [laughs] So we headed to Nashville, which was an amazing experience.” I ask what the immediate feeling was when she said yes. “I was out of breath for a long time!

I didn’t believe it until I was stood in the studio with her.

She’s such an icon and legend. Her energy is unmatched.”

At the time of this interview, Galantis are touring

North America, playing everywhere from Chicago to San Francisco. One festival slot Karlsson and Linus are particularly excited for is Lollapalooza Stockholm, a hometown headline slot that will be very special for them.

We then dive into the studio goodies the pair worked with for Church.

“I do like to reference tracks on Yamaha NS10s, so I have those everywhere,” Karlsson says when I ask about his speakers. “I really love Genelec, though — I also think they’re great to take out on tour; our new stuff, of course, sounded amazing coming through the Genelecs. Especially the biggest Genelec speakers (1238As) - they took up the entire wall of my studio! [laughs] I love those so much. I’d find those so hard to leave when we’d go out on tour and I’d have to use a smaller setup. I’d always miss their sound so much.”

In terms of plugins, Galantis use “everything there is!

We love FabFilter — especially their Pro-C 2 Compressor.

We also use everything from the Waves Tony Maserati Artist Signature Series. I mean, we’ve been using Waves since…there were Waves! But that Maserati series has been particularly amazing, we use it for nearly everything.

Especially back when we were really living the producer life, spending most of our time in studios, we’d be using Waves all of the time. These days, we might be recording grand piano in a room, or we might be using our phones if we don’t have our laptops - it depends on the day!”

And with that, they disappear to perform their virtual reality concert on YouTube to hundreds of thousands of fans. With all these devotees, you can see why they named their album Church. If you’d also like a (very loud) moment of prayer, that new album is streaming now. www.wearegalantis.com www.genelec.com www.waves.com

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Nick Perri

Sound of the Underground

NICK PERRI: SOUND OF THE UNDERGROUND Nick Perri, lead singer and guitarist of Nick Perri & The Underground Thieves, was born to be a musician, and although he has fronted numerous bands throughout his life, Celestion speakers have been a constant throughout his career.

Words Alice Gustafson

The very first song that Nick Perri wrote was awful, he says.

“I’ll never forget the very first time I actually had a guitar in my hand – I wrote a song. And of course, it was absolutely terrible,” he laughs. “Rubbish, right? But I just kept doing it and doing it, and to this day one of my absolute favourite things to do is just to sit down and write a song.”

Perri eventually mastered writing songs that were not rubbish, finding success as the lead singer and guitarist of Nick Perri & The Underground Thieves. Speaking to Headliner from his home in California during lockdown, he does not take his gift for granted: “It’s a really beautiful thing, and I’m grateful for it every day. It’s a gift. I feel like I’m able to tap into something that is perhaps beyond me, and that I’m able to bring something to life.”

Perri doesn’t lock himself away and force

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himself to sit down and write songs, instead letting them come to him: “I feel like I’m a conduit. Whatever is going to come through, comes through, and I just get it out for what it is. I’ll decide later if it fits in with what I’m doing, and if it’s something worthy of pursuing for my own artistic thing.

If it’s not, then sometimes I might give that song away to someone else, or send it to someone to use for a commercial. I just try to capture them when they come and then hold on, because I don’t know where they come from. Sometimes they just come!”

Perri’s obsession with music started in the 90s when his aunt gave him cassette tapes of Pearl Jam’s Ten and AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.

“It absolutely changed my entire life! And now, however many years later, I’m still on that path that was set in motion then,” he

recalls. “That was the turning point of my whole life. I immediately started playing guitar and started chasing this thing. I can’t really explain how it happened. I started playing guitar at age 12, and by age 15, I was gigging four or five nights a week, and by 16 I’m signing a multi-million dollar deal with Clive Davis – it happened really fast. And it is crazy. I call it joining the circus. I joined the circus at 16, and I’m still in the circus!”

Holy Grail Tone Perri is a longtime Gibson user, and after years of using a complicated guitar rig, has stripped it right back to what he had when he first started: a Gibson Les Paul and an ES335 guitar, paired with a “really, really loud” old Marshall amp.

“There’s a reason Gibson and Marshall became an iconic pairing; I call it the holy

Nick Perri

Sound of the Underground

“When you think of Marshall, the classic tone is Celestion Greenback; it’s the gold standard of tone...” grail tone – it just does its thing. It’s so inspiring and so simple.”

Perri’s holy grail of sound wouldn’t be complete without Celestion’s G12M and G10 Greenback guitar speakers.

“When you think of Marshall, the classic tone is Greenback – there’s no other way around it; it’s the gold standard of tone. I’ve had other amps and other guitar rigs and all these pedals, but the one constant – actually, now that I’m thinking about it,” he corrects himself, “probably the only constant in my entire career has been my use of Celestion speakers. So 95% of the time it’s been Greenbacks – 10-inch or 12-inch, but usually 12.”

That reminds him – he recently stumbled upon a game-changer: “I just made an incredible discovery – I’m gonna give away my secret, oh my gosh!” he says excitedly. “The last time that I was on the East Coast, I was in rehearsal, and Doc – one of our techs – came to rehearsal with this Marshall cabinet. And it didn’t have Greenbacks in it, it had four Celestion Alnico Blues, which are typically and very famously the speaker that was used in the Vox AC30 in the 60s. That’s the sound of The Beatles and

Brian May with Queen.”

When ‘Doc’ wired up a Marshall 4x12 cabinet with the four Celestion Blues, the sound blew Perri’s mind: “I’ve never heard anything like that! I plugged my Marshall JTM45 into this cabinet and I went, ‘Oh my gosh, this is like drinking from the well – like the fountain of youth!’ It just filled me up and I just felt invincible. That tone made me get goosebumps, and I couldn’t believe it. So one of my things to do now is build an amp like this, because it just blew my mind. It was very, very cool. The next group of studio recordings will be done with this, so people will really be able to hear it under a microscope, because it’s just incredible. I’ve never quite heard anything like it.”

Perri has been using the lockdown period to work on new music, and plans on releasing something more substantial when the time is right.

“That’s kind of what my focus is on right now – just getting everything together, getting the songs that are recorded and mixed, and getting artwork to try to continue the mission of sharing music. It’s a little weird because the state of the world is just so crazy right now, but everyone that I’ve talked to has

been encouraging me to put out more music because people love music and they love the distraction of it. And I do too – I’m a fan of music; I love hearing it and getting lost in it.”

The last few years have seen the band release a new single every few months as an alternative way for people to digest music.

“It’s cool, and I dig it,” he points out. “But I’m still a fan of bodies of work. I’m an old school album guy and I collect vinyl records.

Every day I wake up and put on a record for my daughter, so I still want that experience, and I want to be able to share that experience with people who want it.”

Perri says that he didn’t choose to be a musician, but that it chose him: “Whatever bug I have, it’s a lifelong thing.

I’m still a young guy, but it feels like I’ve been doing it a long time. And I guess I have – I can’t imagine doing anything else! I think everyone has their own path and I respect and admire anybody who’s following whatever it is in their head and their hearts. For me, I can’t do anything else. This is what I’m here to do... and be a good dad,” he laughs. www.nickperrimusic.com www.celestion.com

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Xylo Aria

Music Production For Women

XYLO ARIA: THE FEMALE GAZE Headliner meets artist and producer Xylo Aria, the founder of Music Production for Women, who explains why removing the fear factor is a crucial step towards welcoming more women into the world of music production.

“I was reading this thing about unconscious bias recently, and I think there is a lot of that in the music industry with regards to women getting hired for certain roles,” begins London-based artist and producer, Xylo Aria. “But that is slowly changing. It’s funny because I was cleaning up a bit recently and I found projects that I worked on and had produced about eight years ago. They were actually quite decent but I remember at the time thinking that I would never call myself a producer. I think it would have helped from an early age to have more visibility about other women being involved in the field.”

In early 2019, Aria set about changing that mindset by launching Music Production for Women (MPW), a global movement, community and online learning platform which aims to encourage and empower women who are taking their first steps into music production. Founded in East London, MPW aims to provide an environment where women can feel comfortable and supported through their production journey.

Since launching, MPW has been included in university studies, featured in numerous podcasts and included in various articles on the topic around the world.

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Aria remembers hearing a statistic that claimed 5% of music producers are female.

“It is a crazy number and to be honest – I think that’s been floating around for ages, so hopefully it’s actually a little bit higher than that now,” she adds. “A lot of it comes down to mental limitations, and that was a big thing for me. By starting up MPW and speaking to a lot of people, I’m realising it seems to be mental drawbacks as to why women don’t get into production. And it’s interesting thinking about why that is the case. Is it because there’s not much visibility and people just don’t see other women doing it? Then they perhaps feel like it’s probably not a space for them. Or is it just the fact that it is such a boys club, and that puts people off a bit as well? I’m trying to tackle all the bits that I think kept me away from the industry through MPW.” Writing music since age 12, Aria eventually took the decision to produce her own music, and after a period of experimenting, released her first material in 2018.

Her own experiences as a female musician relying on other producers and the challenges of learning a skill in an area which is so heavily male dominated planted the seed to empower other women in similar situations:

“I came across a few barriers,” she admits.

“I hate to generalise because of course there are some amazing male producers out there.

But for whatever reason, I always felt a bit powerless in those situations. I let myself be treated in a way that I wouldn’t in another situation just because I didn’t feel like I had any other option, or I felt that by having a strong option I would annoy a producer with my attitude – and then I wouldn’t be able to continue with my music, which is a really shit position to be in.”

Headliner points out that if there were a Music Production for Men, there would certainly be a negative response to this from women; are men supportive of MPW? “I’ve had a mixed reaction,” she smiles.

“There have been some really strong male advocates who are really behind it and really like the cause and everything – they are good allies. But then there’ll be some that’ll be like, ‘Why do you need this? Why can’t you use normal resources for men?’ I’ll just respond to that in a nice way because I think it’s not helpful to be derogatory. Plus it doesn’t bother me – they’re not my target that I’m trying to help. And I was expecting that.”

Aria points out that she in no way wants

Xylo Aria

Music Production For Women

“I show how to navigate Ableton to create your own production, but without getting too deep into the tech...” to exclude men, and that they are welcome to join MPW: “If any male wanted to join, he’d be more than welcome,” she nods. “I know it says ‘for women,’ but that’s mainly because I wanted it to be a place which would be in the majority for women, because every other production class is made up in the majority of men. We do have a couple of guys, actually.”

The Courses Aria teaches the two online classes herself, the first being a free intro to music production masterclass, which runs periodically throughout the week and is open to anyone that is interested in learning to produce. No previous experience or equipment is required, and it is designed to be an introduction to electronic music production for those who have an interest in the area but may be unsure where to start.

As a follow-on to the free intro class, MPW offers an ‘Introduction to Music Production’ online course, which uses Ableton Live as the teaching DAW – taking students through the basics of what each section of the DAW does, to setting up a track, through to the stage of mixing. The course is designed for individuals who may not have previously been introduced to music production and need a learning platform that fits around their schedule. The masterclass consists of seven modules, including an introduction, and

sections on drums, synths, sampling, audio effects and recording and mixing.

Aspiring female producers were clearly waiting for an opportunity like this, as Aria reports that in a year she has had approximately 800 people sign up.

“So much has happened in a year – it’s pretty crazy,” she agrees, adding that she thinks that community is really important.

“Before MPW, I couldn’t find a similar resource for women with the combination of all the elements that we have here. For instance, having a course which is online and accessible from anywhere with a really strong community. Plus we do group video calls every month so that people can access them from anywhere.”

The main aim of the masterclasses is to get people familiarised with production software: “I show how to navigate Ableton to create your own production, but without getting too much into the technicality of it, because I think when you get into that too early, you can turn people off the whole thing,” she shares. “I give women enough details to get rid of that fear factor and make them excited about production and what it can do. Once they have that familiarity with it, then there’s a million resources out there for them where they can go from that point. I would like to expand MPW to a more advanced course, but at the moment it’s basically an introduction.”

The classes are run in affiliation with

Ableton, Novation and Focusrite – all of which Aria is a big fan of. In her home studio, she uses Yamaha HS7 monitors, Neve controllers, an Audient iD14 USB Audio Interface, a Novation Launchkey 49 and Launchpad X 64-pad MIDI grid controller for Ableton Live, and Sennheiser HD280 headphones. For plugins, she uses Waves occasionally – much preferring to stick to Ableton stock plugins.

“I don’t have a whole load of equipment like some people do,” she admits. “But something that I mention a lot at MPW is that you don’t need a whole bunch of stuff to get started. If you just have a laptop, a pair of headphones and any sort of DAW, then that’s all you need. Then you can add to it as you go. You shouldn’t feel like you need to invest a whole bunch of cash to take step one.”

And it’s not just adults that Aria has been focusing on – last year saw her visit many schools to conduct workshops for young girls: “That high school time is important because I think – going back to the visibility point – it’s really important to have that. I really want to help them find this resource and for them to know that something like this is out there.

It would have helped me back in the day. It’s time we started empowering ourselves and each other. If we wait for others to provide the stepping stone, we’ll be waiting forever.” musicproductionforwomen.com

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Alan Moulder

Upstairs, Downstairs

ALAN MOULDER: UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS Miloco has officially taken over Assault & Battery studios in London, which until recently was owned by legendary record producers and mix engineers, Alan Moulder and Flood.

Although they’re not completely severing ties with the recording spaces...

Even the most experienced producers and engineers have to take a moment when they meet their idols. Despite having worked with The Killers, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Two Door Cinema Club, Royal Blood, Foo Fighters and Arctic Monkeys, that was exactly the case for record producer, mixing engineer, and audio engineer, Alan Moulder when he got a call from Jimmy Page.

“We mixed Celebration Day, which was Led Zeppelin’s live album, and being a childhood massive fan of them and getting a phone call from Jimmy Page... I had to sit down for a while after that! Mixing Kashmir on a Friday afternoon was pretty good, and getting Jimmy Page to okay my Stairway to Heaven mix – that was pretty okay,” Moulder grins.

Moulder is speaking to Headliner at Miloco’s Assault & Battery 1, an SSL mix room based at the famous Battery complex

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in Willesden. Originally devised by Moulder and post-punk and alternative rock record producer and audio engineer, Flood, the studio provides an intimate, individual and outstandingly accurate mix environment.

An exceptional spec has been compiled by Moulder and Flood throughout their careers, including a pristine 72-channel SSL G+ SL4000, a huge range of outboard (including many rare and popular compressors, mic pres, reverbs and effects processors), and a ProTools HD 192 rig loaded with a staggering number of plugins. Not to mention a magnificent choice of guitars and amps, complemented by Moulder’s immense collection of pedals.

Today, Moulder is one of the world’s most sought-after mix engineers and producers of indie rock. It all started in the ‘80s at Trident Studios in London, where he worked with influential producers like Jean Michel Jarre,

and met Flood for the first time.

“I trained at that studio – as you did in those days – working my way up to being an engineer,” he reflects. “While I was there I gathered a few clients, and I looked like I was going to be going into dance music because I was doing a lot of dance mixes. But then I worked with a band called The Jesus and Mary Chain, and we made an album together that I engineered.”

Setting Moulder down a path of indie and alternative rock, he then went freelance and went on to work with My Bloody Valentine as an engineer, later securing work with The Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails off the back of that.

“I kind of slipped into production where I produced a lot with bands. I’m like the interface between the ideas in their head and what appears,” he says.

Alan Moulder

Upstairs, Downstairs

“You’d think that it’s a given that control rooms sound accurate and good; a lot of them really, really don’t..!”

Remembering starting at Assault & Battery with Flood all those years ago, he reminisces: “We used to come here when it was Battery Studios! We would come into the room we’re sitting in now – the mix room; we used to use this as one of our mix rooms of choice. We were always very pernickety about the sound of the control room, which is funny to say.

You think that it’s a given that control rooms sound accurate and good – a lot of them really, really don’t,” he laughs.

Although they had a few go-to studios they liked to work in, Flood approached Moulder to tell him that Battery was available: “Flood said to me that one day, we might not be able to get into those studios, or they might be busy, so wouldn’t it be good if we had it. I thought, ‘do I really want a studio?’

Then I realised that he was right.”

This coincided with Nine Inch Nails’ lead singer, Trent Reznor moving his setup from New Orleans to LA. As luck would have it, he no longer wanted his SSL G+ SL4000 console, which Moulder immediately snapped up.

“I love the sound of it, so we bought that off him and set up the room, which is the room we’ve been in for about 15 years now.

And that was the start. Then a few years later, the recording room upstairs became available

[Assault & Battery 2], and we decided to take that on. So we’ve kind of got a little community in here.”

As of March 2020, Assault & Battery studios officially became Miloco rooms, which although makes Moulder a little sad, he is fully on board with the decision: “It was a great option really, because Flood didn’t do so much work last year, so the pressure was on to fill the rooms. So it has taken the pressure off, and we can still hire it when we want – they are still very much our rooms. It’s got all our gear in at the moment, so we’re going to be able to hire it but without the pressure of filling it, and without the pressure of Flood or myself being within it,” he clarifies.

Moulder mainly mixes now, and rarely finds himself recording these days: “I haven’t even used the room upstairs for a year,” he admits. “We had a good run of stuff when Flood was producing up there and I was mixing it down here, which again, we can still do, but Flood was feeling a bit responsible for having to fill the rooms. And as a producer, you can’t dictate to an artist where they’re going to record – they might want to record in a different country, or in the countryside or something. So this seemed like the best solution, because we haven’t lost anything: we

can still book it when we want. Obviously, we’re slightly sad, but there’s not really any downside.”

Moulder says he’s moved into mixing because of his early days at Trident: “I always did more mixing when I started off there, so I come from a mixing background. It’s my favourite thing and is what I think I’m best at. I enjoy the process of having to finish something every day – it’s quite a challenge and it’s down to me at the end of the day. You’re the one who’s got to put it off.”

Riding The Plugin Wave The quality (and amount) of plugins has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade alone – what does Moulder make of them?

“As computers get more powerful, everything’s got better,” he answers. “Plugins included – there’s more variety now.

“I had Waves’ graphic equaliser in the beginning. I’ve been using them for quite a while, and the great thing is you’ve got the copies of the analogue ones that we all know and love, and you’ve also got the ones that aren’t copies that are more scientific. There are so many creative ones and clinical ones – it’s pretty amazing.”

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Alan Moulder

Upstairs, Downstairs

“I love the Waves C4 and C6 multibands, which are great for vocals and sorting out the boomy problems...”

Moulder is a big fan of Waves’ R-Compressor plugin, and the Abbey Road TG mastering chain plugin – which he often uses on vocals.

“They just operate in a different way to most compressors,” he enthuses. “So that’s always a great go-to. I love the C4 and C6 multiband compressors, which are great for vocals and sorting out the boomy problems – things that the tape used to sort out for you, like sibilance and pops. You can use that to calm those things down, which is great.”

Waves’ H-Delay is another go-to – “there is something about the sound of that delay that sounds really musical to me” – and Moulder has recently been using H-Reverb.

“I just recently got it,” he nods. “I think that thing’s amazing. I’ve used that a lot on vocals and drums because it behaves in a really great way, just like the delay does. I use the Stereo Imager a lot as well because I do a lot of very dense music, and that enables me to move things wider in the stereo image and to get a little bit more space. I like the old REDD.17 and REDD.37 desk plugins too – I don’t even do much to them; just running through them seems to make a difference. They give it a nice little bit of a sheen without even tweaking anything.”

R-Bass is another must-have for Moulder, which gives him a modern sound whilst filtering out some of the low end.

“It just seems more controlled and punchy,”

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he says. “I had Waves on my first rig in ‘92, so I have been using them for that long really, which is a hell of a lot! They’re completely integral to my work: if I look at any session, there’s loads of Waves plugins on them. For instance, if I want an EQ that has a sound, I’ll use the SSL EQ or SSL G-Channel, because that’s the sound that I love. They just appear everywhere on my sessions, as do the reverbs and the delays. If I took the Waves stuff off my sessions, it wouldn’t sound the same.”

Split Decisions When it comes to being hands-on on the console, Moulder says it’s a 50/50 split between that and working in the box.

“If it’s a band that wants to sound like a band, I’ll use the console, but I still use EQs and compressors,” he explains. “But because you get so many tracks these days, you can’t do what you used to do: I’ve got kick drums in one channel now, snare in another, and everything broken out – I tend to work in groups.”

He recently mixed the latest Ozzy Osbourne album, too: “What we do is get the first mix on the console that’s close or ballpark, and then do extensive stems. Then we finish the mix off in the box. Even though it’s on the console, there will still be a lot of plugins going on, and then they’ll get added again on the stems.”

Moulder has seen his workflow change a lot

over the years – everything must be quicker now, and more cost efficient: “There are a lot of studios closing, so we’ve had to adapt all the time to suit the way it changes – you have to be a lot quicker,” he agrees. “You have to be able to go back quickly, and that’s why even when I use the board, we stem extensively so the changes can be done quicker. A lot of the time the artist isn’t here anymore – it used to be that at the end of the mix everybody piles in and says, ‘yes, done’.

“And then it’s done, because recalling that mix would be three hours of work! So people had to really want to pay for the studio for that time in those days – it’s an expensive business so people didn’t just change things because they could. Now you have to be prepared to be able to constantly change things.

“Is it better or worse? It’s just different really. I wouldn’t say I’d take one over the other – there are advantages and disadvantages. I enjoy the fact that we have to adapt – it keeps you on your toes, and it keeps you constantly thinking about what you’re doing and how you can improve it. I don’t think the quality of records has necessarily gone down. The standards are pretty high, so that’s the main thing.” www.milocostudios.co.uk www.waves.com

OWN THE ROOM www.digico.biz DiGiCo UK Ltd. Unit 10 Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road Chessington, Surrey KT9 2QL. Tel: +44 (0) 1372 845600

Cover Story

BLACK PUMAS RISING A supernatural musical connection was realised the day busker, Eric Burton, sang ‘some gibberish’ down the phone to guitarist and producer, Adrian Quesada. Together, they are the Grammy Award-nominated Black Pumas. Headliner hotfoots it to London’s Rough Trade Records to meet the formidable musical force destined to fill out much bigger venues.

Words Alice Gustafson | Photos Danny Clifford

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T

he day the 2020 Grammy Award nominations are announced, I hear what surely must be a timeless soul song blazing over the airwaves. A track that makes you stop what you’re doing and listen, Colors turned out not to be a quintessential ‘70s Blues track that had seemingly escaped my ears’ attention my whole life, but the second single to come from Austinbased psychedelic soul band, Black Pumas.

Fronted by singer, Eric Burton, and guitarist and producer, Adrian Quesada, the duo formed in 2017 after Quesada found the singer he had been searching for in Burton, who at the time was busking in Austin, Texas. A friend of Quesada’s happened to pass Burton’s busking spot, and wasted no time in recommending him. A call was set up, and Burton sang down the phone – although it took him a while to get round to it.

Meeting the duo at London’s Rough Trade Records directly after a mini set and packed vinyl signing session, Quesada and Burton remember how they started out: “I sent Eric a few instrumentals to get the collaboration going,” Quesada recalls. “I checked out his songs, and I had already recorded some of my own. I’m like, ‘hey, here’s the vibe’. It took a couple of weeks for him to get back to me at first, and I was like, ‘man, this guy’s not into it!’ But eventually, he called me and he sang Fire. He was playing in the background and singing, and I was driving to a gig.

I couldn’t hear it that well, but the whole energy behind it and the vibe…I was like, ‘man, this guy’s incredible!’ I loved the whole interaction.”

A studio session was eventually set up, where they recorded Fire and Black Moon Rising – both of which are featured on their self titled debut album, released in 2019.

“It’s funny because a lot of people think that we set up an audition by way of phone, which is a very cute idea,” smiles Burton – earnestly adding that he hopes that doesn’t sound too facetious. “I get very excited about the things that I’m working on. And I’m very apt to just call a friend up and say, ‘hey dude – check this out; I really like this idea. Am I crazy?’ And I did that to Adrian, not knowing him. Which should give you some insight as to what he was inspired by.

I guess it was my forthcoming energy in that way. I sang some gibberish over the phone and he was just like, ‘Yeah, sounds good! Come tomorrow?’”

Calm and pensive during our interview, Burton speaks poetically in a warm, soulful voice that hints at his vocal prowess (which Headliner bears witness to later that evening

at a sold out show at London’s Islington Assembly Hall), taking his time to answer and sometimes losing his train of thought in the process; Quesada gets to the point right away, speaking excitedly and quickly. On stage, their roles reverse: Burton the showman surges with a humming energy, leaping about the stage (and often into the delighted crowd) whilst effortlessly filling the venue with his electric, soaring vocals, while a mellow Quesada leaves him to it as he holds the groove down.

No connection to The Black Panthers, “it just sounds cool,” they insist, Black Pumas was born – the name made all the cooler due to the way Americans pronounce the word ‘puma’. The result is a polished, timeless-sounding debut fusing the duo’s combined influences of ‘70s soul, rock and roll, gospel, hip hop and funk, with influences drawn from Ghostface Killah, James Brown and Sam Cooke.

Burton’s sublime vocals aside, Quesada’s slick production is key to their sound. Having been a member of Latin funk band, Grupo Fantasma when it won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album, he had already laid the foundations of what would go on to form an essential part of the Black Pumas’ sonic vibe.

SUPERNATURAL SOUND

Most bands start out live, then head to the studio – but not the Black Pumas. This is a studio band that expertly made the jump to a live band – and a damn exciting one at that.

The record has a live feel to it, and such is the skill of the duo, their band and their backup singers, that their live sessions sound impossibly good, bolstered considerably by Burton’s vocal dexterity.

“It started out of the studio, versus some live bands that eventually go and make an album,” notes Quesada. “We started in the studio. That’s our happy place.”

An almost unspoken creative understanding between the pair quickly became evident when they started recording together.

“Eric was the only person where I was like, ‘I want to work with this guy,’ but originally we just had a few songs,” Quesada recalls. “Then as we started to get some momentum and had fun working together, he was showing me his songs. He’s a prolific songwriter. So I was like, ‘those songs actually work well with these songs’. That was the early process, and when we officially became the Black Pumas, we started arranging his songs for this sound in this band, and it just all fit like a glove.”

“As soon as we met for the first time, we were just

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“I’m super detached. I’m going to bed at four or five in the morning because I can’t get this stuff out of my head, and I want it to be good...” ourselves,” Burton agrees. “I came into the studio at Adrian’s house and I had skeletons of a few songs that I was prepared to freestyle over.

Adrian presented these tracks, and I didn’t think we would make anything too big of it. I thought maybe this might earn some catalogue spots…”

Far from it. The outcome is a retro sound that is not contrived, but rather a natural result of the duo’s fusion of their influences and styles.

“It was so natural,” nods Quesada. “At first, Eric was trying to figure out how to sing along to somebody else’s songs, but I felt like everything he was doing sounded amazing – even on the first take, you know? Everything was working perfectly; there was a little bit of all the things we like: his love for storytelling, folk music and rock and roll, and we both love hip hop and classic soul. All of that just was just super natural – not supernatural – super, very natural. Maybe a little supernatural,” he laughs.

“One thing that I really, truly love about working with Adrian is that he has a way of keeping his lane to the degree that he does what he does very well,” says Burton. “When I came into the picture, it sounded more like a producer’s album where I’m just singing on very well-produced tracks, and I’m very thankful for the fact that he was open to making it more accessible to people. I think that by coming from playing on the street and busking, I was able to interject a little bit of human nature. My favourite part about collaborating is when we’re in the studio; I feel like we’re best friends in the studio.

It’s really cool to be able to come together where we do very strongly – it’s enchanting to me.”

Going from a fairly concentrated Austinbased fanbase to playing a sell-out tour of north 28 Headliner

America and Europe has taken some adjusting: “We’ve been on tour steadily since the album came out and we’ve been hitting the road a lot, but it’s incredible,” Quesada insists. “We’re in another part of the world and people are singing the songs back, so it’s been great, although it’s taken a little bit of adjusting, for sure. Before we were touring this much, we were still working on music and trading ideas, and now we have five minutes here and there to say, ‘check out my new song,’ and and then we’re signing an autograph, and then we’re back. So the time that we used to have to work on new ideas is limited, but we’re happy to be playing the music,” he smiles.

Burton has a more ethereal response: “Honestly, I don’t want to say that I’m taking it for granted because I’m not,” he begins. “I’m very thankful for what’s happening. I’m embarrassed to say that I just don’t notice it that much. I think that what holds our attention the most is being surrounded by artists that we respect. I did quickly realise that it was starting to become a really big deal when Questlove invited us to come and play his jam session, though. The night before the Grammys we were surrounded by so many people that we respect, such as Dave Chappelle and Larrance from 1500 or Nothin’.”

However Burton definitely noticed something had changed when he posted on Facebook that he wasn’t actually prepared for the award show: “Having a stylist be down to come to my hotel room at two in the morning to do my hair...” he remembers. “I put out a call on Facebook saying ‘I didn’t prepare for this and I need to get a retwist done,’ and someone came to my hotel super early in the morning, and I had a stylist dress me in really expensive clothes that I could never afford!”

Black Pumas received their first Grammy Award nomination in 2020 for Best New Artist at the 62nd awards, which although got scooped up by Billie Eilish, still saw a surge of interest in the band, who were in London when they got the news.

“I remember I was trying to call home, and texts kept coming in and I was like, ‘stop texting me, I’m trying to make a call!’ Then I finally read a text about the nomination. I was like, ‘ohhh, okay, wow!’” Quesada laughs.

“I am so detached,” admits Burton. “I didn’t even have my phone. I thought, ‘why is Adrian pacing back and forth?’ Adrian said, ‘did you hear the news?’ I said, ‘what are you talking about?

What news? Did something bad happen?’ And so we tell the band, and we have a group huddle.

Being from Austin – although I’m not from Austin, but living there – you get interjected into this incestuous, passionate music community where we care about each other, support each other, and uplift each other. We shared a lot of kind words, and we screamed and we cried together; it was a really cool moment

THE PUMAS’ DEN

The majority of the record was recorded at Quesada’s home studio, aside from a few occasions when they had to record on the road.

Where possible, Quesada takes an analogue approach: “It’s mostly analogue to really get that sound, vibe and that human feel, but then eventually you have to embrace the computer because it’s this century and it helps for recall and the process that we were working on,” he shrugs.

Most of the record was recorded to an MCI eight track, one-inch tape machine before

“It started out of the studio, versus some live bands that eventually go and make an album. We started in the studio; that’s our happy place...” inevitably making its way into a computer.

“I used a lot of preamps, microphones and Universal Audio plugins,” he says. “The plugin technology has become so amazing that it’s almost pointless to not use it, you know? If I had all the budget in the world I would have hardware everything, but it is what it is. And computers are amazing now.”

The last track on the record – Sweet Conversation – was actually recorded by Burton at his home; Quesada decided against re-recording it at the studio.

“Eric was constantly writing with his roommates, and he would send me little demos they made of home recordings,” says Quesada.

“Sweet Conversation is him and his roommate.

He sent it to me, and the idea was that we would redo it in my studio, but I tried it and was like, ‘I’m not beating that original version!’

I’m confident enough to just say, ‘I’m just going to stay out of this one and get out of the way’.

I didn’t play on it, I didn’t record it, and I didn’t produce it, but I was happy enough to include it.

Because it was better than the version I tried!”

Both musicians are talented guitarists, and are each proud owners of one-of-a kind Fender Deluxe Custom Shop Telecasters. At today’s show, Quesada is playing a new Fender Acoustasonic Tele – sent to them specially for their performance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where Burton took a turn at using it.

“I went to the Fender store in L.A. and as I went in, I was almost set back a little bit because the main guy who helped us out – I think he had a tonne of Red Bull that day because he was very amped!” laughs Burton. “So I thought, alright, I’ve got to match this energy because he’s gonna

hook it up with a guitar! They’ve been really cool about meeting our every need on the road.”

Their tour is due to finish inNovember 2020, after which they look forward to returning to their natural habitat.

“We love playing live, but we started as a collaboration in the studio,” Quesada clarifies. “So we’re looking forward to getting back to that.”

“Yeah, definitely,” agrees Burton. “I know I get on my bandmates’ nerves because I’m super detached. I’m not waking up on time because I’m going to bed at four or five in the morning every night because I can’t get this stuff out of my head. I want it to be good, you know? I think to a degree, we’re always working on [new music].

There’s tonnes of ideas – I was just showing Adrian a couple of ideas that I actually had the pleasure of producing myself. When we go home, people have wives and kids, so I’ve been kind of forced to go, ‘okay, let’s see what this button does’.

We’re super excited about what’s to come.”

The record’s standout track, Colors is a fan favourite, and is a song that moves people in a way that they probably can’t explain. On the tour so far, there have been a few instances that have taken them by surprise: “It’s a bit emotionally heavy, but the Dublin moment stands out for me,” Burton says to Quesada, who nods. “There are a lot of people who are connected to the music, and I think that both our histories and our past speaks for itself in the culmination of the quality of what we’re doing – and people are really connecting to it. It means so much to us that people want to reach out and make special moments.

“We just had someone reach out as they wanted to propose to their husband. This is

really uncustomary in America! But I was very honoured to be like, ‘Sure, give her the microphone, and we’ll do it’. In Dublin, it was super special because we got to take a moment of silence for someone who had been battling five years of cancer, who had passed. She worked in the music industry and was an integral part of what goes down there. She had just come to a show maybe a few weeks prior, and we had a moment of silence for her.”

“There were 30 of her friends in the audience, and they said they played Colors at her wake,” adds Quesada. “So just that moment of silence after hearing a crowd that’s ecstatic and rocking out and dancing, and having them all be a part of this was really something.”

“It was hard enough not to cry,” nods Burton, “and I think we all shed a few tears. It’s really special what the music is doing; that’s the most surreal part to us – the connectivity. It’s uncanny.

You know, even being here at Rough Trade Records – probably around 75% of the people in this audience had never seen us live, and they were singing the songs with us, and a few people were visibly in tears. That part of it means so much, and we’re inspired to do a better job.”

“It’s a curse and a blessing, because it’s hard to balance the different aspects that make up my life individually,” he notes. “It’s not easy for me to detach from the creative process. I’m not moved in a negative way as far as productivity goes. I remember Adrian saying, ‘I’m having a good time, and it seems like you’re having a good time as well. Let’s just do this until it’s not fun anymore.’

We’re just making music because it’s fun.”

www.theblackpumas.com 29 Headliner

Q&A: LYDIA NIGHT we chat to the regrettes frontwoman, Lydia night, about female empowerment, making the cover on major publications, festivals, and the band’s epic how do you love EP... since the release of your debut full-length EP, you’ve played Coachella, and landed on the covers of the L.A. Times and L.A. Weekly. what has adjusting to this experience been like?

Playing Coachella is such a dream come true. I used to always think to myself, wow, the day we play that is the day I know we’re doing something right; so to be playing for our second time this year is truly unbelievable. Playing on TV is the only time in recent years I’ve experienced serious stage fright. There’s something so scary about it and I never remember what happened because I kind of black out.

what was the moment when things started taking off for the band?

I think when we started seeing people at our shows know the words. That is something that blew my mind so much and still blows my mind.

There’s nothing cooler than having people yell lyrics about your life back at you. So cool.

Your lyrics have been described as having common themes of female empowerment, politics and love - do you agree with this, and if so, was this a conscious choice?

I agree, but I always write lyrics about a hundred other topics. It’s not a conscious choice really because it happens so naturally. I write about my 30 Headliner

thoughts and views on life and the world and they’re very honest - so those themes just happen to come out and become important to me.

How Do You Love represents you moving into a new era - what is different about this body of work, and what do you hope listeners will feel when they listen to it?

This full-length EP tells more of a story than our debut so I hope that listeners really try their best to hear the lyrics and piece it all together. I want everyone to feel empowered when it’s over.

How does Fender Next help emerging artists, how does it feel to be one out of only 25 artists selected, what are they doing to work with you; and why do think this is an innovative and important initiative?

Fender Next is very sick. Fender has been a huge part of my life since I was a little kid and has always been my choice of guitar brand for electrics. It’s crazy and surreal to now be so tied in with them, I’m truly honored. They provide us whatever gear we need to tour and I can’t explain how grateful we are for it. www.theregrettes.com www.fender.com

“this ep tells more of a story than our debut, so I hope that listeners really try their best to hear the lyrics and piece it all together; i want everyone to feel empowered when it’s over...”

https://austrian.audio MADE IN AUSTRIA

MAKING PASSION HEARD

Dustin O’Haloran

The Art of Channeling

THE ART OF CHANNELING

I put to American composer, Dustin O’Halloran, that when he first spoke to Headliner in 2016 over coffee in Berlin, his career was just about to seriously take off. “Well, Lion came out in 2017, and things took a turn for sure,” he says. Indeed, that film, which stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, and Nicole Kidman, saw Dustin and co-composer Hauschka receive a string of nominations at the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs. He has also picked up an Emmy award for his work on TV show, Transparent.

Words Adam Protz

This saw O’Halloran land more highprofile projects, including movies such as The Hate U Give, and the new BBC adaptation of A Christmas Carol. And working alongside Hauschka once more, two very exciting films with music from these two due for release are Ammonite (starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan), and a very special Netflix film, The Old Guard (Charlize Theron, Chiwetel Ejiofor and many more). And this is all off the back of a successful career in composition that has seen him release solo albums and as part of ambient music duo, A Winged Victory For The Sullen.

Discussing his several years working heavily in film, he says “because the film industry is a collaborative experience, that means there’s always going to be some compromise.

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You have to go into it knowing that. Which reinforces the fact that I have to focus on my own music — I’m not going to give everything to film permanently.”

O’Halloran has a number of excellent, ambient solo piano albums to his name, not least of which being 2011’s Lumiere. That release date shows you just how busy he’s been with film scoring since. “I’m going to take a break and work on my own record. And doing this tour now with Winged Victory has been a nice return to just making music, which is very important for an artist.”

Indeed, Dustin and Adam Wiltzie, his co-composer in A Winged Victory For The Sullen, have just arrived in London, having played a show in Bristol the previous night. I’m reminded of the ‘tour bus-hotel-

soundcheck-concert-hotel’ nature of touring when I mention that the London hotel we’re sitting in is right around the corner from the London 2012 Olympic Games site, and Dustin confesses he had no idea.

Speaking of the devil, Adam Wiltzie, a very accomplished film composer in his own right, appears in the hotel foyer in sunglasses and fedora hat. He pops over to say hi while he waits for his Uber to their rehearsal at Round Chapel, adding: “Dustin is a much better interviewee than I am,” before heading outside. This latest Winged Victory tour is in support of their 2019 album, The Undivided Five.

Rewinding back to 2011, O’Halloran, both solo and as part of AWVFTS was a key figure in the ‘neo-classical’ boom of new

Dustin O’Halloran

The Art of Channeling

“After the Oscar nomination, more projects came in; I said yes to too many things, and got swept away..!” instrumental music that saw artists such as Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds breakthrough into the mainstream. In fact, all of these artists were on the same record label (Erased Tapes) at the time.

I confess that, having seen the likes of Arnalds and Frahm increase their solo output, I did not foresee him moving so heavily into the world of film, and ask if he did himself.

“No,” he says, with a hearty laugh. “I was just enjoying it, and after the Oscar nomination, a lot of projects were coming in.

I was just really enjoying being in the studio and not touring. I probably said yes to too many things and got swept away!”

Despite putting so many hours into film, O’Halloran did find time to release the compilation Other Lights, and also an EP, Sundoor, last year, which are available to listen to now.

Regarding Winged Victory’s latest album concept, strongly influenced by the Swedish abstract artist Hilma Af Klint and her spiritualist art-channelling group, O’Halloran adds that “it’s just about the mystery of art.

And the mystery of the subconscious. I felt connected to her art in the way she was channelling. She was a part of this group

called ‘The Five’, and she was channelling art that was communication to ‘the other side’, or whatever you want to call that. I feel like all art is a subconscious communication; that’s when you’re really channelling it, it comes when you’re out of your own ego. Just the question of where true creativity comes from fascinates me.”

For this tour, he and Adam Wiltzie have entrusted RME for the soundcard on these very ambitious, large scale concerts.

“This is our first tour using an RME interface,” O’Halloran says. “We have a very technological concert, where we’re all connected by ethernet. It’s a very tricky show to put together, so the soundcard was always going to be important. The RME is nice and small so great for going on the road. We’ve brought out the Fireface UC with us.”

O’Halloran has an Antelope soundcard back home, while Adam also has an RME Fireface UFX in his studio, which he previously told Headliner has “such fidelity and quality of sound - true clarity.”

For plugins, O’Halloran has been enjoying “these plugins that Francesco Donadello helped develop - they’re called Acoustica.

They’re making incredibly realistic analogue

remakes - CPU-heavy, but they sound amazing. Sound-shaping is always a mix of analogue and digital for me. I use a lot of guitar pedals and tape delays. Soundtoys plugins are always great; I think their whole selection is fantastic. For my solo work I tend to only use analogue, but for the film work, Soundtoys are a great help. I’d say most of my scores have Soundtoys in there somewhere.”

So, of course, once these film projects are finished, it’s time to just do some music as Dustin O’Halloran.

“I think I’m gonna be working on some chamber music for Deutsche Grammophon, and just get away from computers for a bit,” he says with a laugh. “I actually want to go in two extreme directions with that and then the album - really carved-out compositions, and then this really abstract, electronic zone.”

You can feel his excitement and anticipation as he finally heads towards some free time for solo works. Headliner is certainly excited to see what he channels next. www.rme-audio.de www.soundtoys.com

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Sonic Vista Insights

10 Minutes with Betto

10 MINUTES WITH BETTO

Betto is a world-renowned DJ and music producer who has earned himself an international following by bringing together different kinds of house music as well as rock and pop classics to create a unique style of dance music.

Words Henry Sarmiento & Jonathan Tessier

Striking the perfect balance between old and new, Betto brings a feel-good young beat to 70’s, 80’s and 90’s classics with an innovative and refreshing slant. His distinctive style appeals to all and both his covers, remixes and original tracks have become iconic amongst his diverse following, As a DJ, Betto’s skill at keeping the dance floor busy, from start to finish, comes from his own passion for bringing people together from all backgrounds, nationalities and generations, making him the DJ of choice for different private events and clubs world-wide.

Originally from Brazil, Betto arrived in Europe in 2014 to take up a residency at Destino Pacha Ibiza, Spain. There he had the opportunity to play alongside international headliners such as Solomun and Luciano.

Just a year later, Betto was closing the season, playing the main stage at Pacha Ibiza.

In January 2019 Betto signed a residency

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at Annabel’s Mayfair, arguably the most exclusive and high end members club in the world, where he now performs regularly.

“Rock definitely came first,” he tells Headliner. “Back in 1994, when I was seven years old, my parents went on a holiday trip to NYC and brought me Bon Jovi’s new album Cross Road, which was a compilation of their greatest hits at the time.

“Living on a Prayer was the first song in the album and it just hit me instantly. I couldn’t stop hearing it for months and was obsessed

by Richie Sambora’s the guitar sound.

Electronic Music came along when Betto was in his teens: “I started doing my own home parties at the age of 14 and also went to my first Rave party in Brazil. That just changed my world.

Back in 2009, Betto had a friend who was very involved with the nightlife in Sao Paulo and lent him her Pioneer CDJ 200s

and a mixer: “I learned to spin at home by myself during the holidays ,and just felt in love with it,” he recalls. “I never thought I would ever get into music, until I played at a big party in Sao Paulo in 2011 and noticed my ability to read the crowd, feel the moment of the party and drop the right track. It was very an amazing feeling to see 700 people jumping with my track selection.”

If there is a vision behind the music Betto spins and creates, it’s to come up with something that connects with his soul and his audience.

“I’m constantly trying to create music that makes people escape and enjoy the moment and bond through the music,” he explains. “At the end, it all comes down to bringing people together.”

Producing music was a real game changer in Betto’s career, as he built his own repertoire

Sonic Vista Insights

10 Minutes with Betto

“My idea was to incorporate classic rock from the ‘70s into house music and bring that genre to the clubs...” made of remixes, mashups and originals that no other DJ had access to. This made his sets unique, and people started booking him even more because of that.

“It all started with my remixes of The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix,” he says. “My idea was to incorporate classic rock from the 70s into house music and bring that genre back to the club scene, where the young generation isn’t listening to these artists so much anymore.

“From that, I started remixing my all time favourite songs, independent of genre, with the same concept in mind: to incorporate iconic songs into house music and make them playable in the night clubs. I’ve remixed about 50 artists so far including Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Dido, Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz and Placebo.

Releasing remixes like this doesn’t come without challenges, however.

“I’ve always been warned about the challenge of releasing these remixes, since I’d need the approval from the record labels and the original artists to get them properly out on streaming services; people often questioned

why would I spend so much effort, time and money on remixes that I would hardly be able to ever release on Spotify or Apple Music.

“The answer is simple: This is the music that makes me a unique DJ, and when I play it people just love it. That reflects positively on my bookings, as people want what they can’t have, and my remixes are not available anywhere, except on my sets on Soundcloud.

Conversation turns to Betto’s own songs.

“I just finished eight original tracks, which I’ve been working on for a year and currently looking for a label to release them,” he reveals.

“My intention is to create tracks that are truly viable commercially and can be played by both underground and mainstream artists. Tracks that can be successful by penetrating different music scenes: deep house, tech house, EDM and accessing a broader audience.Technically, they’re a crossover of different kinds of house music, with short vocals and very uplifting vibes. I believe vocals are important to connect my music with a broader audience and I’ve been trying to find the right balance between vocals and instrumental parts.

What was it that inspired Betto to become

a DJ and electronic music producer?

“I’ve always wanted to develop my own music style and be a unique DJ, and for that I knew I would have to present in my sets not only a distinctive sound, but also a unique repertoire that is easily recognisable by my audience.The only way of achieving that is by producing your own music and coming up with ideas that lead to a mashup, remix or original track that can cause a real impression on your audience and make them wonder: ‘Omg I love this! What the hell is that?’

“People always want what they can’t have and, as a DJ, is very important to have exclusive content that no one else has access to. Once again, music production is the only way to achieve that.

Betto’s relationship with the Sonic Vista team is a very strong one.

“I was based in Ibiza for five summers, from 2014 till 2018. and was looking for a studio to produce my music there. I asked three different people, and they all mentioned the same place, so I decided to check it out. www.sonicvistastudios.com

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Live Sound

Mixing Björk

JOHN GALE: MIXING BJÖRK

Björk’s vision for her most elaborate and experimental stage concert yet required the right technology to turn her ideas into reality. FOH engineer, John Gale explains how d&b’s Soundscape system is changing the sonic landscape across the live events industry.

Words Alice Gustafson

Following a world premiere at New York City’s The Shed and a residency at Mexico City’s Parque Bicentenario, Björk announced her European premiere of her Cornucopia show at London’s The O2 in late 2019.

Describing it as her most elaborate stage concert yet, and breaking new ground in terms of technology meets art, Cornucopia is a digital theatre performance crafted around Björk’s most recent album, Utopia.

Innovative to its core, Cornucopia embraces the very latest in immersive audio technology thanks to its use of d&b Soundscape, a 360 sound system that immerses fans in a sensory techno-acoustic utopia.

Powered by the DS100 Signal Engine, an audio system processor based on a powerful Dante enabled signal matrix, d&b Soundscape facilitates unparalleled creativity through its two software modules En-Scene and En-Space.

Tasked with helping realise Björk’s sonic vision was FOH engineer, John Gale, who says the singer was keen to see how he could transfer her ideas into a live scenario.

“She’s very clear in what she wants to do

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and has strong ideas, and we don’t always know what curveball might be thrown in the next day,” begins Gale. “It’s good fun; I look forward to the challenge each time it comes up. When I started on the Utopia project, Björk came to us just before the first show and said, ‘Is there any chance we can have some bird effects coming from behind?’ That was the first clue that I knew we were going to head down that route!”

Björk was keen to try d&b’s Soundscape system to see if it was right for her needs, and had a small demo system sent to her space inside a lighthouse in Iceland.

“She came up with a load of ideas before I even got in the room with her, and what’s great about this system is it can scale from a small space up to a massive space like an arena,” Gale points out. “So once you’ve made your decision, the software will work out the maths and allow you to place more speakers into a setup. Each time we went to pick a venue, it would all scale up. We were really pleased with the result, because we didn’t actually know how well it would work with these really large venues!”

The team were one of the first to try the system in an arena-sized venue: “We were really, really happy and super excited once we were listening to it and realising that we were going to pull this off!” d&b Soundscape acts as a comprehensive sound designer toolkit; and it’s not just a 360 system which achieves this – a 180 proscenium system on the stage front provides much more than the sound of customary right-left setup. Adding more loudspeakers builds a 360 system to create acoustic environments with En-Space, or the EnScene canvas can be expanded around the audience. In short, the aural environments created by Soundscape are audio solutions delivering benefit to all involved ‒ from the sound designer, to the engineer, to the artist, and most importantly, to the audience.

“Exactly,” says Gale. “At one point Björk decides she wants all the flute sounds to be spinning around in a circle around the audiences’ heads, or bird effects specifically flying from one speaker around the room to another, so there’s a lot of marrying things up with the lighting and video department,

Live Sound

Mixing Björk

“With Soundscape, you can position an object in the software, and it applies its own reverb algorithms...” as well as the video content. She was very keen that we somehow married all the senses together. So if I had an explosion sound or drum sound that came out of a single speaker in the room, she might want a strobe right by that speaker to flash at the same time. So we were doing a lot of programming across all departments to make sure that all of the senses were married together in certain songs.”

Gale says the real fun came when they worked out how to make all of Björk’s wishes come true: “We have seven flute players on stage and they will always be moving around to different positions on the stage,” he explains. “I like to localise the sound of particular flute players to come from where they were standing from their position on the stage, which is really fantastic. At the same time, for some songs Björk wanted the flutes to come from behind, or from the sides – or from everywhere! So each song had a different approach.”

During the show, Björk performs a number of songs from inside a specially-built reverb chamber made with acoustician, Arup – which allows her to sing live with customised natural acoustics.

“This was one of those mind blowing moments when she rang up and said, ‘Yep, I have this concept…’ She was basing it on an art installation of mountain ranges and

Iceland – someone had made these chambers, and you could go into them and be immersed in a natural reverb. So she wanted to do this on stage, which was, again, another mind blowing experience!”

To keep ahead (or at least on par) with Björk’s forward thinking ideas, Gale keeps up to date with the latest tech innovations: “I always wonder what’s coming around the corner! I must say that Soundscape is brilliant for the slightly more out-there performers.

The way it works is you can take an object and you can position it using the software, to a position on stage, and then tell the software to apply its own reverb algorithms to that position. It’s a super, extremely clever surround sound reverb that applies to the whole PA system, and you can put people into an acoustic space.”

Gale says Soundscape was particularly effective when using a 50-person choir as part of the Cornucopia show: “I could place them in the positions that they are on stage, and they would be timealigned back to their physical positions,” he enthuses. “By adding a bit of reverb from the d&b DS100 software, we’ve become so acoustically transparent compared to leftright systems with a bit of reverb on it. I read a review where somebody said that the choir’s amazing display sounded like it was

unamplified, but actually they were amplified!

It’s just because of the software and the way we utilised it. Björk’s using it as a tool as part of the music.”

Gale is confident that Soundscape will be embraced more and more by the live events industry as time goes on: “And not just with artists like Björk, but for many bands; I think there’s massive scope for it,” he nods. “From a production point of view, a little bit of effort has to be put in to make it happen. But I think the rewards - in terms of sound quality going from a left-right system – is worth it. I can see other bands that are catching on to that quickly.

“I’m in a really privileged position where I have a boss who is happy to experiment and happy to push the boundaries as much as possible,” he acknowledges. “There’s definitely a place for this technology to expand beyond anything we can imagine, and the more we use it, the more we’re going to find exciting avenues that we can use it on. Hopefully when we all get let outside and back into a work environment, we will all come running with tonnes of ideas. In the meantime, d&b will be working in the background, just making it even more powerful!” www.dbaudio.com

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who is melanie?

Toronto songstress, MELANIE is not one to mince her words. Headliner gets the scoop on this Caps Lock-defying new artist’s rebellious debut single, Yeah Yeah...

Head wedged between the red fishnet-clad legs of a woman on the provocative cover art for her debut single, Yeah Yeah, emerging artist, MELANIE is giving us the finger. “I’ve been told no so many times, it’s time I tell everyone else no,” MELANIE tells Headliner. “I wanted to come out running off the top with a song that shows the world I’ve found my power, and it’s here to stay.”

Describing Yeah Yeah as an “I don’t give a fuck”’ guitar anthem for “when your chips are down and you’re searching for that bouncebackability,” MELANIE’s smooth, commanding vocals and growling guitar line tell a story of fighting an inner conflict and finding power after a heartbreak.

In terms of what influences her music, it’s real life inspiration, or nothing: “It’s always about my life and what I’ve been through. If you’re not talking about your relationship with the world around you from experience, then how can you influence those around you?”

The message behind her White Stripes-esque debut track is that you can get over anything with the power of your mind, and for MELANIE, it’s important to her that listeners feel that “we are all connected, and that we are all the same.”

You only have to glance at MELANIE’s Spotify playlist, Red Rage (we daren’t ask) to get a sense of her musical inspirations: it’s all Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, The 38 Headliner

Smashing Pumpkins and Grace Mitchell (who MELANIE doesn’t sound to dissimilar to, actually).

“I try to pull from inside of me, or it’s coming from the past,” she says. “I love Kurt Cobain, Tracy Chapman, Tedeschi Trucks Band, old soul singers, and anything that touches me in any genre. A good song is a good song, and it doesn’t matter what genre it is from and how it got to your ears. If it feels right to you, it feels right to you. I’ve been inspired by country, to jazz, and my playlists can look very outlandish to people, but that’s what makes music special – it doesn’t have to look a particular way. I look up to artists who have had longevity in this industry.”

Leaving a musical legacy is important to the singer – she is not interested in producing throwaway music: “I’ve created a new wave of music,” she asserts.

“It’s not just straight rock music – it has a mix of blues, R&B, electronic, and ME. The messages leak vulnerability, stories, passion and love of actual authenticity. I’m not just trying to release songs that are in one day and out the next; I’m trying to create music that lasts a lifetime. I want people to truly enjoy it and understand who I am, and what I am doing in this industry.”

When it comes to music production, MELANIE is very hands-on: “I like to get involved in the production. I will sit in a lot of the sessions and have a major part in it. I would say I’m a very hands-on artist. But I work with

“a good song is a good song, and it doesn’t matter what genre it is from and how it got to your ears...” an amazing team that I love dearly, and are now family to me that I trust. I can’t wait to share what we have been doing. My producer, Jeff Hazin is an incredible mentor, as well as my songwriting partner, Matt Kahane.”

Before releasing this single, MELANIE reveals that she was “working [her] ass off getting ready to launch this music,” and has new music and possibly some live shows in the works.

“That’s a surprise I will leave you to find out!”

More power to you! www.whoismelanie.com

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FORD v FERRARI Capturing Christian Bale’s dialogue on the set of Ford v Ferrari – for what many car aficionados say are the most realistic race scenes ever created for a feature film – turned out to be surprisingly easy, thanks to some smart thinking and top-notch audio capture.

Words Alice Gustafson

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F

ord v Ferrari has won a lot of awards – and notably, a lot of sound awards. Amongst its numerous other accolades, the film scooped up wins for Best Sound Editing at the Oscars, Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture at the Live Action Cinema Audio Society Awards, a Hollywood Sound Award at the Hollywood Film Awards, and won Best Sound at the Satellite Awards.

Telling the true story of the Ford Motor Company’s upset racing victory at Le Mans in 1966, Ford v Ferrari has earned praise for what many car aficionados say are the most realistic race scenes ever created for a feature film.

This involved capturing the dialogue of actor Christian Bale (playing driver, Ken Miles) at realistic speeds, a challenge which fell to production sound mixer Steve Morrow, a 25-year Lectrosonics user nominated for Academy Awards for his work on La La Land and the 2019 remake of A Star Is Born.

“I went to school in Seattle at Bellevue Community College, taking film-making classes – all of my sound was terrible,” Morrow admits. “That got me interested in sound – good sound. I took some classes and bagged working for free as a boom operator on a freebee job, Where the Air Is Cool and Dark. Twenty-five years later... here I am!”

Morrow’s tenacity paid off – now regularly playing a crucial role in critically acclaimed blockbuster films.

“I always approach every film the same way,” he says. “I need to make sure to capture the performances of the actors – no matter what that actually means. So for A Star Is Born that meant being able to capture the live onset singing and performances of the band and cast. For Ford V Ferrari it was making sure to get the cleanest, clearest tracks on set of the

cast. We knew going into that one that post was going to have a field day with the car sounds and racing! Our goal was to help with that as much as possible.”

Morrow used Lectrosonics compact SSM transmitters and UCR411a receivers to put the audience behind the wheel of Bale’s fire-breathing Ford GT40: “I always use SSMs for all the actors’ mics,” he states.

“They’re the smallest and lightest transmitters Lectrosonics makes; they’re ultra-reliable, and the talent barely knows they’re there. Lectro has other transmitters with higher output power, but we’ve never had a problem with range.

For most of the dialogue, we have active shark-fin antennas on long coax cables, powered from the Venue two receiver chassis.”

Recording cockpit dialogue, however, called for a different approach, as the cars would be driven around actual racetracks: “The cars, including the Shelby Cobra and Ford GT40, were put on a vehicle called the ‘Biscuit rig,’ so named because it was used in the movie Seabiscuit,” he explains.

“It has its own motor and stunt driver, a movable pod for a camera operator, and hauls the vehicle around the track at speed. Christian was focused on acting, not driving, and we miked him up with an SSM and DPA 4062 mic, then put a simple bag rig consisting of UCR411a receivers and a field recorder right in the trunk of the car.

“The Biscuit rig is designed for shooting and there’s no room on it for a sound operator, so we had to just start the recorder, watch them drive off, and trust we were going to get a good recording. Lectrosonics lets me have that trust, and I like the UCR411a for this sort of guerilla work, because it can really take a beating.”

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“We only had one vintage Ford GT40 on set, so for authenticity, the post-production team went to a track day and convinced a bunch of guys with actual GT40s to let them record their engine sounds...”

The method worked so well, in fact, that they were able to record an exchange in which Bale talks to another driver who briefly pulls up alongside him: “For that scene, we didn’t have a separate audio bag in the other car, just a second UCR411a feeding another track of the recorder in Christian’s car,” Morrow points out. “When the other driver pulled up, his SSM came within range, he said his lines, then drove away. It went off without a hitch.”

THE INSIDE TRACK

Morrow’s main concern was at what level the dialogue would be inside the race car on the track: “For this I turned to the DPA 4066 lav – it’ll take 150dB of noise before overloading. This would only be used for any dialogue in the cars while driving. It worked like a charm! The biggest challenge on race days was to mix every SAG actor, as [director] Jim Mangold would often have the pit crews talk when they weren’t scripted to. So it’s just a matter of being ready for anything all the time.”

Lectrosonics recorded the sounds of the cars as well as their drivers: “We only had one vintage Ford GT40 on set,” recalls Morrow. “The rest were film cars with more modern engines for the sake of reliability.

So, for authenticity, the post-production team 42 Headliner

went to a track day and convinced a bunch of guys with actual GT40s to let them record their engine sounds. Where boom mics were needed, we put HMa plug-on transmitters on the boom poles so the operators could move around freely.”

For on-set communications and IFB monitoring, the team, which included Craig Dollinger and Brian Mendoza, used LT transmitters to talk to each other, because of the convenient red toggle switch on the top that can be used as a mute.

“We also used an older UM400a as an IFB transmitter, and we all listened using IFB-R1a receivers,” he adds. “I’ve recently just got into the M2 Duet system as well, and am looking forward to using it more.”

LONG LIVE LECTROSONICS

Morrow credits Lectrosonics’ reliability and performance for his long-term loyalty: “Every film I’ve done for the last 20 years was recorded via Lectrosonics. I’m always happy and impressed with the products. It never fails – it sounds as good as if you’re running cables, and it holds onto frequencies for dear life. I now have three Venue 2 units on my main cart, so I can do 18 channels of wideband. The SSMs are wideband-capable, which is key with the available frequency spectrum being such a moving target Knowing that the SSMs were small and durable was a huge plus for Morrow:

“We put them on the actors all day, so they need to work – and I trust they will. The reliability of the equipment is always important and Lectro has never let me down.

“Let me give you one last example of how solid it is,” he furthers. “In 2017 I did a film called The Front Runner which starred Hugh Jackman as the presidential candidate, Gary Hart. We had 21 actors miked with SSMs at all times, and a lot of it is rapid-fire dialogue with people talking over each other – like a Robert Altman movie on steroids. Scanning for frequencies at the beginning of each shooting day took no more than 20 minutes, for everybody, and we had zero problems with crosstalk, dropouts, or interference. Even if you’re starting out in sound and on a budget, I strongly recommend that you get however many channels of Lectrosonics you can afford. This is gear you won’t want to replace in two, five, or 10 years.”

What impresses Morrow the most about Ford v Ferrari is the feeling of camaraderie the film captures: “Much like the story itself, the filming was hard and hot and dusty, but the finish line was the reward itself. A film that people love is the best part,” he smiles.

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Live Sound

The Australian Pink Floyd Show

THE AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD SHOW

Having sold over four million tickets for concerts that have taken place in 35 countries, The Australian Pink Floyd Show is not your average tribute act. The band’s guitarist and vocalist explains why Austrian Audio’s OC818 microphone is rocking his world.

Words Alice Gustafson

“Pink Floyd created their own universe of sound – no other band has ever sounded the same,” enthuses The Australian Pink Floyd Show’s (TAPFS) guitarist and vocalist, Stephen McElroy. “It’s so important to capture not just the sound, but also the feel and the emotion of their amazing music.”

The band certainly succeeded in their mission to replicate their musical heroes as faithfully as possible, as they were once booked by Pink Floyd’s very own David Gilmour to perform at his 50th birthday celebration.

One of the original founding band members of what went on to become TAPFS, McElroy has enjoyed seeing the band grow from the early days, through to headlining at the Royal Albert Hall, Wembley Arena, Hammersmith Apollo, and London’s O2 Arena for a concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Dark Side Of The Moon in 2013.

Although it took them a while to get to this level, using the years to perfect their sound and showmanship. It all started in 1988 in Adelaide, Australia. Lee Smith – a local

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guitarist obsessed with Pink Floyd – wanted to augment his band, which at the time featured drummer, Grant Ross, and bassist, Trevor Turton. He placed an advert in Allan’s Music store which read: ‘Vocalist and keyboardist required for band.

Professional attitude expected. We only play Pink Floyd.’

McElroy and Jason Sawford (current keyboard player) each saw the ad, and before they knew it, the now five-piece band commenced a regular weekly practice – naming themselves Think Floyd.

Fast forward to 1993 and the band were known as The Australian Pink Floyd Show, playing a three-hour show as part of a Pink Floyd fan convention at Wembley that is talked about by fans to this day. The tribute act finally got the recognition they deserved, and started to get booked on more shows, so much so that this ended with the departure of homesick founder, Smith, and ‘Bear’ Sutton.

In September 1994 came a show which changed everything: Gilmour visited the band backstage after a show in Croydon, pointing out that he’d never had the chance to see Pink

Floyd perform.

“He was very complimentary, posed for pictures, and invited the band to perform at Pink Floyd’s party to mark the end of their Division Bell tour!” remembers McElroy.

Due to curfew restraints at the venue, this plan fell through, but when the phone rang not long after, the band found themselves being asked to perform a handpicked set for Gilmour’s 50th birthday.

TAPFS have since played for Pink Floyd themselves, even performing with members of the real band, and have also played at Battersea Power Station (the iconic building which appeared on Floyd’s Animals album cover). McElroy is fiercely passionate about the authenticity of the band’s sound, and has carefully built up an elaborate replica guitar rig that incorporates much of the same equipment that Gilmour uses. (His favourite is his late 70s blue Fender Stratocaster, which Gilmour has actually played).

Naturally, the mics the band use on stage must adhere to the same level of sonic perfection, which is why TAPFS chose to use Austrian Audio OC818s while on tour.

Live Sound

The Australian Pink Floyd Show

“When you experiment with the extra features, you start to realise how magnificently capable these mics are...”

“We were very keen to use Austrian Audio microphones,” says McElroy. “They have hundreds of years of experience between them all and they also have the desire and passion for their brand. We are now seeing new mic technology from Austrian Audio that will revolutionise the industry. Exciting times!”

The first thing McElroy noticed about the OC818 was the build quality: “Straight out of the box they felt solid, heavy and robust,” he nods. “They feel like they will last a lifetime. The microphones are beautifully presented and it’s immediately apparent that they are a top quality product – surpassing the AKG legacy, and firmly rubbing shoulders with the likes of Neumann.

The build quality is fantastic, and the ceramic diaphragm mount and solid body is a work of art – and also technically brilliant. Everything about their microphones oozes quality.”

The band have been using OC818s on their guitar cabinets and the drum kit while touring around the world, using the dual cardioid pattern (stereo) feature for the drum overhead channel – meaning they only have to place one microphone over the kit instead of two.

“We’ve never heard it sound so great, as there are no audible phase cancellations due to having two microphones so close together,” he points out. “The single stereo microphone is far superior.”

McElroy also likes the spirit and drive behind the relatively new microphone brand: “I have to say that entering into the microphone industry and going up against the big boys must have been quite a daunting prospect for all at Austrian Audio! However, their first offerings are stunning, and you can see in every detail that they are really wanting to prove themselves.

“On the face of it you may think that Austrian Audio is simply making another large diaphragm microphone, but when you experiment with the extra features, you start to realise just how magnificently capable they are. The mode switches are also heavy duty, and they don’t require a tool to adjust them – everything can be selected by hand. This is so important when in a live situation. It seems Austrian Audio has thought of everything!”

And it’s not just the band that is impressed.

Trevor Gilligan, TAPFS’ FOH engineer, has found the OC818 to be reliable through and through: “We need a good, reliable set of mics as they are used, put on and taken off for over 100 shows a year – in all extremes of indoor and outdoor shows,” he says. “I use them for overheads and ride cymbals – which is a very important part of my mix – and the difference is very noticeable. We have also deployed them on a guitar rig, and that sounds very

good. What I like about the mics is the sonic punch and rich smooth sound across the whole frequency range, especially at the top.

The rejection of feedback is also very good; These mics suit our needs very well indeed!”

McElroy agrees that the mics seem built to last – highlighting their solid, weighty feel: “We really like the flatness of them as it makes them more placement-friendly, particularly on close mics for speaker cabinets,” he clarifies.

McElroy is looking forward to using more models as Austrian Audio introduces them.

“It all comes down to the quality of audio,” he stresses. “These microphones are very accurate, very flat in frequency response, and particularly accurate and smooth in the high end. They are warm, organic, and real. These microphones won’t colour your sound, so they won’t leave you second guessing what your audience is hearing. They won’t exaggerate undesirable frequencies. Instead, your audience will hear what you hear on stage, but sweeter. I’m extremely fussy and picky about sound and I’ve tried a multitude of microphones, but these microphones are not only refined and classy, they also have a lot of mojo going on!” www.austrianaudio.com

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WHEN IN ROME...

Crafting the score for Netflix film, The Two Popes – starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce – was a dream come true for Bryce Dessner, who cut his teeth on score-composing on The Revenant.

Words Alice Gustafson

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W

hen I did the score for The Revenant, the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu said to me, ‘if I’m pointing at the moon, don’t draw my finger!’

– which is really good,” begins two-time Grammy Award-winning composer, Bryce Dessner, who most recently composed the score for Fernando Meirelles’ Netflix film, The Two Popes.

“He was basically saying, ‘look, I’m asking you to be yourself, to dream big and to try things and to experiment – and that energy was also what Fernando brought to The Two Popes. He was very excited about who I am and the types of sounds I could bring to it – he loves my string work and the work I do with voices, and really asked me to try many things. It was the first project where I was able to go on set and meet the actors; I was there for some of the filming, so that was also very inspirational for me to be able to absorb the film.”

Set in Rome, The Two Popes tells the story of the conservative Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) and the liberal future Pope Francis ( Jonathan Pryce) meeting behind Vatican walls, where they seek to find common ground to forge a new path for the Catholic Church – along the way discovering a deep, fraternal love for one another.

An intense acting masterclass delivered flawlessly by thespian heavyweights Hopkins and Pryce, the film is dialogue-heavy (you can’t blame Meirelles for making the most out of actors of this calibre), but also leaves a lot of breathing room for Dessner’s delicate score.

Recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios, the score finds its voice in the storied pasts of each Pope: lively yet bittersweet guitar-driven themes representative of Pope Francis’s native Argentina, and classical strings and pipe organ dictating the somberness and loneliness of Pope Benedict’s Vatican.

And much like their meeting of minds, Dessner’s score finds a way forward for the paired pontiffs by merging

the two sounds into a frolicking friendship of improbable melody.

Speaking to Headliner from Paris, where he now lives, Dessner is a founding member, guitarist, arranger, and coprincipal songwriter of the rock band The National, and has more recently made his mark in the world of cinema – now lending his prolific and diverse talents as artist and composer to various critically acclaimed films.

“Working with Alejandro was my big immersion into scoring film, and since then, I’ve been doing a bunch more,” he explains. “Working on The Revenant was a really incredible experience for me, and was a real education.

Alejandro said, ‘look, your music is in the film – it’s an important part of it. I want you to find a way to weave it throughout the score’. He’s a deeply musical director – as is Fernando. Both of them have a keen ear for music, and sound design is a huge part of their films.”

MUSICAL HERITAGE

Recording at Abbey Road was a dream for Dessner: “The Beatles’ Blackbird features in the source music of the film, so we were able to plan early on that we would record it at Abbey Road,” he says. “That was a dream situation to record there with the London Contemporary Orchestra. It was such an incredible experience to go into that beautiful historic studio – I recorded an Abbey Road 2, which is really The Beatles’ room. In my session, the two Neumann cello mics were Paul and John’s vocal mics, and the microphones on the organ were Ringo’s drum mics! The place itself has a real magic about it – it’s deeply inspiring to be there in the room.”

Part of the film is set in Argentina, which is where a lot of those musical influences came in: “That’s where there’s beautiful source music from South America,” he nods. “On one hand, my score is layered orchestral sounds, and then on the other hand, it’s very influenced by South American folk music, which is music

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“I think that because the acting is so strong, they don’t lean on music as heavily as films sometimes do. There’s a lot of humour in the film as well as levity, so some of the source music is really fun as well...” that I really love and grew up playing. I’ve studied classical guitar since I was a teenager and did a master’s degree in that. So I have that kind of language in me.”

Dessner travelled to Rome during production, where the team had built a replica of the Sistine Chapel due the Vatican’s strict no-filming rules.

“I did meet Anthony and Jonathan – they’re both Welsh, which is super interesting,” he notes.

“Because I came in when they were still shooting, it gave me a lot of time to do some freeform sessions early on where I developed music inspired by what I was seeing before the film was cut, and before it was edited. So there were a bunch of themes that I worked on, and some of that did make it into the film.”

As the film’s edit progressed, Dessner was able to refine his score by identifying scenes that needed music.

“It’s not a huge amount of music; I think that because the acting is so strong, they don’t lean on music as heavily as some films sometimes do. There’s a lot of humour in the film as well as levity, so some of the source music is really fun as well. It was just a very joyful experience working on it.”

RECORDING IN PARIS

Dessner was given cuts of the film for many months, meaning he would be constantly refining the score to suit the pace of the scenes.

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In his studio in Paris, he used a Neumann U87 microphone with a Neve preamp to record all the film’s guitar parts. Dessner works primarily in Pro Tools, and often uses Spitfire Audio to demo string samples.

“Because we knew we were recording at Abbey Road, it was not so necessary,” he chuckles. “I did quite a lot where I was bringing in musicians to demo, so I would have string players come and record a violin, or I recorded the grand piano myself. The amazing experience for me was recording in Paris in the quiet of my studio and really being able to internalise musically what the film was demanding of me. For the pieces that are guitar-based, I really spent time getting a performance – the sound of the classical guitar created an intimate, raw kind of folkloric feeling. I did spend quite a lot of time getting performances that felt like they were breathing.

Recording with a Neumann microphone of that quality, you feel confident that you’re capturing beautiful sound. To get that affirmation from the Abbey Road team that it sounded good was nice, because some of the music was recorded in the absolute best environment in the world, and then other things I recorded at home, essentially.

So it was nice to have that feeling that I was doing it right!”

Dessner says that although Hopkins and Pryce’s characters didn’t have their own leitmotifs as such, the score that underpinned their scenes

did have certain sonic tells: “It’s a bit more subtle and layered than that, but I think in general, Pope Benedict is coming from a German or Austrian background with a more romantic sense of orchestration. So there’s some big orchestral cues that we recorded at Abbey Road that are linked to Benedict. The beautiful thing about the movie is that Benedict plays piano – Anthony Hopkins is a beautiful pianist. There are moments where he’s playing classical pieces, and it’s beautiful. So there’s the sense of his music coming from Europe.”

For Pope Francis, Dessner went in a more folky direction, and was particularly inspired by the music of Argentine singer, Mercedes Sosa.

“There’s an important Mercedes Sosa song in the score, and there’s several themes that are set on the guitar and then orchestrated that are more linked to his development and the change of his character throughout the film. Then we’ve got musical factors such as the use of The Beatles’ Blackbird, which is actually mentioned in a conversation in the film at one point.

“The film is largely a conversation between those two great actors, and it has this kind of intimacy about it. It’s just beautiful, beautiful performances,” he smiles.

www.brycedessner.com

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Jay Wadley

Back Down to the Orchestra

JAY WADLEY: BACK DOWN TO THE ORCHESTRA The Sundance Film Festival might not be a place you’d think to go to find rising stars in the world of music. But exciting new films and filmmakers also means exciting new composers.

One of those composers seeing a film they scored premiering at Sundance is Jay Wadley.

The Yale-educated, New York-based film scorer is heading to the illustrious film festival for the premiere of I Carry You With Me, a Heidi Ewing feature that has created quite a buzz around itplosion his new band, moa moa, are enjoying off the back of their debut single.

Words Adam Protz

“I’m heading to Sundance tomorrow morning,” Wadley tells me as we get talking.

“So I’m prepping everything last minute to get out the door. I then need to head straight back as another film I’ve been working on has dragged on a little longer with the mix.” Said film is the latest from screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman, the man behind Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. Watch out for I’m Thinking Of Ending Things at a cinema near you, complemented by Wadley’s music.

“This will be my fifth year at Sundance,” he

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continues. “My first one was with Indignation in 2015. But last year was particularly busy — as well as those movies, I also worked on Tales Of The City for Netflix [which stars Laura Linney and Ellen Page].”

I ask Jay about his experience of working on his new Sundance-featured film, I Carry You With Me, an epic love story that deals with a forbidden gay romance in Mexico, crossing borders and memory loss.

“Heidi [Ewing] had me in pretty early on,” he says. “It deals with this 20-year love story.

It’s Heidi’s first narrative film, having mainly

worked on documentaries. So it was very exciting for me to be part of her transition as a director.

“We were trying to play with this sound world of moving from Mexico to New York, the concept of memory and the memory of Mexico. So I sought to use Mexican instrumentation but as part of the fabric and with a nostalgic quality, so that the music itself feels like a memory.”

I remark that of the two original score soundtracks of Wadley’s that you can currently listen to on Spotify, they show huge

Jay Wadley

Back Down to the Orchestra

“My musical background is pretty eclectic; I’ve just taken every opportunity that’s come my way, which has really honed my skillset as a producer and composer...” contrast and versatility. 2016’s Indignation sees him drawing on his classical education, while Adam of last year employs a lo-fi, electronic score.

“I do think it’s one of my strengths,” Wadley says. “I did also used to be a punkrock drummer, guitarist and singer! My musical background is pretty eclectic. In New York, I’ve just taken every opportunity that comes my way, which has really honed my skillset as a producer and composer.

“But I do feel most at home in the classical, experimental world. Those opportunities don’t always come by that often, so that’s where I want to focus more of my energy these days.

It’s a case of establishing my particular voice.

“But I love the process of collaboration and exploring sound. I love Jonny Greenwood’s scores, I love Jon Brion scores — these kinds of approaches. Being a chameleon at first has given me a lot of opportunities. I’ve had so

much fun.”

While Wadley prides himself on using live instruments as much as physically possible in his work, Spitfire Audio are an important part of his initial creative process.

“I have tonnes of the Spitfire stuff,” he says.

“Pretty much all of them. Chamber Strings, Albion, almost all the Inspirational Textures stuff. The Ólafur Arnalds piano is great for a quick fix, soft-sounding piano!

“Each project calls for a different sound, but I use Spitfire for strings almost across the board. I will eventually replace the samples with real instruments, but I find Spitfire instruments very helpful.”

Wadley is also a big user of Waves plugins in his film duties.

“I’ve had Waves for a long time,” he says.

“The range of products that they offer is fantastic. I’ve always been able to get the right sounds quick, when you’re working at this

pace! Waves plugins have always helped me to do that. I’ve got the Mercury setup, and use a lot of the CLA things. They make my work a lot easier.

“I also use a tonne of Valhalla stuff; they tend to be my go-to for reverb. And something that has been huge for my mixes has been the Fabfilter ProQ 3. It’s awesome.

Being able to do that sort of dynamic EQing has been life-changing!”

Tales Of The City is streaming on Netflix now, and keep your eyes peeled for I Carry You With Me and I’m Thinking Of Ending Things hitting cinemas, as you won’t want to miss Wadley’s music coming out of the best speakers possible. www.waves.com www.spitfireaudio.com

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Live Recording

DPA 2028 On Test

RECORDING TRANSPARENT VOCALS The voice is the ultimate instrument – and no two are the same. This means that often, when you come to record vocals, aside from the fundamental dos and do nots in any recording process such as keeping a clean signal on the way in, going easy on EQs, and so on, there is no one ‘correct’ way to do it. In Headliner’s experience, it’s about the vocal performance just as much as the sonic setup and the singer’s mic technique, and keeping it simple will usually garner the best results, no matter what the microphone.

Today, we’re working with four Londonbased emerging artists – they’re all very different sounding, vocally, and in their musical style. They’re going to perform live, using the same microphones, and we’ll be capturing those performances using an SSL SiX analogue console into a Merging Technologies Anubis audio interface, before mixing them down in Headliner’s studio.

The focus here is twofold: to capture genuine live performances, so no dropping in, just one take; and to keep it as natural as posible, so there will be no processing on the way in, and as little as possible in post.

We’ll be using the DPA 2028, which is DPA’s new condenser mic, aimed at vocalists of all levels. The 2028 is the little sibling of the company’s flagship 4018 vocal mic; it’s physically smaller, more affordable, and is said to pack a similar sonic punch to the

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4018, a mic which is used by a plethora of international singers: Paloma Faith, Aurora, and Headliner issue 32’s cover star, Emeli Sandé, to name just a few.

First up we have Molly, a young r&b singer, who’s going to record an original number, White Lie, accompanied by guitarist, James Smithells. We have a 2028 on Molly’s vocal, and a DPA d:dicate 4011A condenser on James’ acoustic guitar, around 12th fret position and six inches from the instrument.

I pull up signal on the guitar first, monitoring on Genelec 8331 monitors and Audio-Technica M50 headphones, and as expected from a mic like this, I get an unbelievable sound right away – no need for any low end roll-off. In fact, I go in even closer to the guitar, and it’s better still – so often with a mic, that has the reverse effect.

The 4011A is evidently very efficient for

close-miking.

I ask Molly to sing a line or two from her track, and the first thing that hits me is that it immediately feels like we’re in a studio.

This is a fairly open live space, and there is no acoustic treatment – it’s basically a small gig venue – yet I’m not picking up any reflections, and it sounds clear as a bell through the monitors and headphones.

They go for a take – which ends up being the only take, I should add – and as I listen through on headphones, I’m struggling to think what I need to add or change. There is no compression applied on the way in, yet it feels like there is - the vocal is so controlled, it’s as if something is glueing it into place as soon as she sings into it. The 2028 benefits from a seriously good preamp, that’s for sure.

No EQ is applied either; everything is going down clean as a whistle, so there’s plenty of

Live Recording

DPA 2028 On Test

“The crispness of the top end really shone through; for live singers, a mic that can handle those sparkly highs without generating any feedback is a huge bonus...” scope for tweaking in post production.

I ask Molly and James to come and take a listen, first on headphones and then on the monitors – their first impressions are that it ‘sounds mixed already’, and although it will be tweaked, I know what they mean – it’s this controlled sound that’s impressing me so much, allowing the vocal to sit on top of the mix so well, despite the fact Molly isn’t always in close proximity to the mic during the take.

Listening Back Next up is Dotty – a talented grime artist who has chosen to rap some original bars, a cappella into the 2028. The 2028 has a built-in pop filter in its capsule which is very effective, but to be sure we don’t have any issues on that side of things, we put a studio pop shield in front of the mic so he can get up close and personal. This guy has such a deep voice, and the mic really shows up the dynamics when we come to playback.

“No other mic has come close to giving me this quality of sound,” Dotty declares. “It’s really opened my eyes to what my vocals can actually sound like.”

After Dotty, we have The Last Morrell, who performs an original track with vocal and electric piano - it’s a nice contrast to the previous artists as he not only delivers a

much higher SPL (which the mic seems to absorb effortlessly due to its high gain before feedback), but he’s using more of his vocal range, therefore we’re getting the sparkle up top as well as the punchy low-mids. There’s lots of potential ‘pops’ here too, as he’s eating the mic throughout, but none of that comes across on the recording, which is impressive.

Finally, we have Anja and Cara Rodford – two sisters from the trio ARC, and also daughters of Steve Rodford, drummer in The Zombies, and granddaughters of the late Jim Rodford of Argent and The Kinks. Their rock and roll heritage speaks for itself, and what’s amazing about these girls is their ability to harmonise with such remarkable accuracy.

It’s a sibling thing, they assure me, before delivering a flawless one-take version of a beautiful a cappella piece.

Cara then brings out her ukulele and we give it the same treatment as James’ acoustic, positioning the 4011A just a few inches away from the soundhole. No boominess at all, just a warm natural capture of what is a pretty tough instrument to get a good sound out of.

three-second reverb from the Waves H-Verb.

EQ-wise, I’m hardly manipulating anything – just carving out the deep lows in the guitar and the vocals, and that’s about it.

Dotty’s vocal I keep totally dry, which brings the voice right up front and highlights the mic’s warmth and transparency; Anja and Cara’s vocals are ethereal sounding at times, and the mics really do their voices justice; and Molly’s just really natural sounding. The Last Morrell’s track is perhaps the most dynamic of the lot, the staccato keys allowing the full range of his voice to cut through the mix.

“The clarity of the 2028 was amazing, especially singing a cappella,” reflects Cara Rodford. “It felt really smooth even before it was mixed which was really exciting - we’d love to use these mics again.”

“I felt the crispness of the top end really shone through,” adds James Smithells. “For singers performing live, having a mic that can handle those sparkly highs without generating feedback is a huge thing. It was also so warm and full-bodied, so I thought it was really well balanced - just a really beautiful microphone.”

The Feedback (or lack of) When we come to mix down, all I find myself adding is light compression, courtesy of a Waves CLA-76 across the vocals, and a

www.dpamicrophones.com www.waves.com

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Theatre

Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus

INSIDE DÜSSELDORFER SCHAUSPIELHAUS

Like any modern theatre, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus’s goal is to keep pace with ever-increasing demands from production teams. And in the case of a multi-space complex such as this, an agile digital infrastructure, with multiple routing options and optimum interconnectivity, is paramount.

The theatre’s technical team recently upgraded its Optocore network, originally installed back in 2011, to a far more advanced, and future-proof system.

This has brought their previous analogue set-up entirely into the digital domain, and at the same time increased their connectivity.

These efficiencies have also created side benefits, such as faster change-over and set-up times, in turn enabling longer rehearsal times.

The latest integration, undertaken by Amptown System Company GmbH (ASC), was overseen by the Theatre’s Tonmeister (and Deputy Head of Sound), Torben Kärst, who designed the audio system. This has seen the installation of Optocore M-series MADI boxes in both the large and smaller theatres, and an AutoRouter (in the latter).

“The installation was about achieving increased routing options, better sound quality, an increased channel count and greater flexibility,” he states.

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“In theatre, if a director has an idea he/ she wants to try out, the scenario is expected to be delivered in minutes. And in terms of transmission it is also mandatory to keep system latency as low as possible,” Kärst continues. “This is where Optocore is absolutely the market leader. In addition, there are advantages of reliability and the small form factor of the devices so you can easily build large decentralised systems. This is why Optocore was the choice for us.”

The three-building complex itself includes the main theatre at Gustaf-Gründgens-Platz (GGP), housing an 800-seat main auditorium, a 350-seat smaller studio theatre and U’haus (a small cellar stage). All the locations at GGP are now on an Optocore network.

The original Optocore installation had increased routing options in the large theatre, and opened a gateway to the future.

“But it was always our intention to upgrade the small hall as well, and have access to the

same features we have in the larger space,” reveals Kärst. “The idea of a new ‘house loop’ came later and was the culmination of the intensive work the team had carried out on the future orientation of the audio technology in the theatre.” The team comprised head of department, Peer Seuken, Tim Deckers, who oversees the video, and Torben himself, whose task it is to ensure all the ideas work technically, with full integration and interconnection.

However, the design blueprint underwent many iterations and drafts over a five-year period. Along the way this included a modification to the Optocore I/O boards when the theatre started switched its mixing consoles to a DiGiCo platform.

But the significant changes occurred last year, and Torben tracks the development leading up to the deployment of Optocore’s M-series MADI boxes. “Once we received the go-ahead from our management, we

Live Sound

Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus

“Since centralising our entire wireless system, we can send audio signals across the whole building...” approached [Optocore MD] Marc Brunke and discussed different options and approaches.

From the original proposal for a ‘stand alone’ Optocore system for the small venue came the possibility of exchanging audio signals between both the larger and smaller theatres.

“The biggest leap forward was when we decided to centralise our entire wireless system,” Kärst continues. “Since then, we have been able to send audio signals across the whole building.” Critically, the third Optocore loop, the Haus-Ring (house loop), was a much simpler but more powerful version of the original design.

These three rings now comprise the two Optocore/DiGiCo loops in both the large and small venues, and the house loop which interconnects both networks with other locations in the building, such as the U’haus, Foyer, rehearsal stage and recording studio, via MADI. The Small Room now features an Optocore AutoRouter and M8-BNC in DD4MR emulation mode. Three PCs are connected via MADI to the DiGiCo system.

Meanwhile the house ring now comprises an Optocore M12 in the RF room. The M8 in the smaller venue is connected via MADI to the SD10, while an M8 and M12 (in redundancy mode) have been installed in the large venue—the M8 collects the signals and the M12 distributes it to the two engines.

The M12 OPT/BNC in the RF room is equipped with Optocore’s new sample rate converter.

“It is the centre point of the house loop,” Kärst confirms. “With this device, we distribute our 56 radio mics and feed the 16 IEM devices. It’s also the clock master of the whole audio system.”

At the same time, the theatre’s tech team had kept abreast of developments with Optocore partner company, BroaMan. As a result, three BroaMan Repeat48 devices are now deployed for video distribution. One Repeat48-24 device in the small hall converts the fibre connections to SDI in the central video rack, while two Repeat48 WDM-12 exchange video channels between the small and large halls via just a single optical connection.

Another major leap forward, says Torben

Kärst, had been created with the arrival of the Optocore AutoRouter in the smaller theatre.

Kärst explains: “With AutoRouter there is no need for patch cables to close a loop, as this is now done automatically. Each connection point on stage is connected to the AutoRouter as well as the permanent devices as a loop and the DiGiCo console. Connecting the console separately, and not as part of the permanent loop, provides us the possibility to power off the console and check the optical status of the system using the Optocore control software.

So we are able the see the RX and TX power of each transceiver in the system, which makes troubleshooting much easier.”

Summing up the value of this upgrade, Torben Kärst is unequivocal.

“For the small venue, we now have an increased channel count with fixed installed connection points spread all over the hall.

This includes Mic/Line inputs, Line outputs, loudspeaker outputs, video I/O as well as sufficient Cat7and fibre ports. www.optocore.com www.digico.biz

55 Headliner

Lighting

Alice Merton

ALICE MERTON: STAYING MINT

Your first single – the only song you’ve ever released – goes to No. 1 and becomes an international smash; what do you do next? For German-Canadian singer-songwriter Alice Merton, the only way to ride that wave was to release more music.

Words Alice Gustafson

For Merton, the breakout success of No Roots ignited a constant run of transcontinental gigs, interviews, and television performances, however in her free time, she kept herself busy writing and recording songs for her debut album, MINT. Born in Germany and raised in Canada and England, Merton’s absorption of different styles and sounds helped craft the worldly progressive pop leanings on her debut, which came out in 2016. As a child, she learned classical piano and singing while in Canada.

When she was a teenager, her family moved to Germany, where she picked up a guitar and wrote her first song.

For Merton, her whirlwind story is reflected in her songs: “Some talk about growing up and moving

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around a lot, but a lot of others discuss the struggles we’ve had with starting a label – the feeling of trying to prove yourself to everyone,” she states.

After studying Popular Music and Music Business at university, Merton founded Paper Plane Records Int. with her manager Paul Grauwinkel, while crafting songs alongside co-writer and producer, Nicolas Rebscher.

“Label reps scoffed at No Roots: ‘It’s a minute too long! Take the guitars out!’” she recalls.

However, by the time it topped Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart in the U.S, hit the top 10 in nine countries, was streamed more than 300 million times and sold over a million units (helping her go platinum in seven countries in the process), the naysayers soon

turned into supporters.

Merton has been spinning her chair as a jury member of The Voice of Germany of late, and as recently as March 2020 was on tour promoting MINT +4. The singer is excited to let her music do the talking: “It feels really relieving,” she affirms. “I’m very excited we can finally put these songs out and even start working on the next chapter.”

The MINT +4 tour took Merton to Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Denmark, where she presented her powerful repertoire of indie pop songs, supported by a versatile lighting setup from GLP. The lighting and set design was a coproduction between Grauwinkel and lighting technician Maximilian Hermsdorf, in close coordination with Merton herself.

Lighting

Alice Merton

“As the stages, capacities, and conditions differ in each venue, it had to have an adaptable and scalable setup...”

The technical team around Merton and Grauwinkel had been in constant communication about new and existing products from the GLP catalogue as far back as 2017.

“The fixtures from GLP form the basis of Alice Merton’s set design,” Grauwinkel confirms. “Reliability is vitally important and we haven’t had a single failure of X4 Bars in all the years we’ve been using them.”

The KNV Dots, KNV Lines and impression E350s were used for the tour.

“As the stages, capacities and general conditions differ from venue to venue, it was important to have an adaptable, scalable set-up,” Grauwinkel explains. “That worked particularly well with the GLP devices – especially with the KNV systems that can be used so easily in a decentralised role. There were also limitations on the power supply here and there in the smaller locations, and once again the GLP fixtures came into their own because everything is based on efficient LED

technology.”

The stage included a relatively large plexiglass platform, accessible via a staircase in the centre, which served as a riser for the drums and keyboard. Grauwinkel and Hermsdorf placed the impression X4 Bars in two rows of two at the front edge of the riser as well as on the truss gates at the rear edge of the stage. The other GLP Bars were mounted on the side of the truss stands and, where possible, were distributed freely around the stage.

The KNV Dots were placed both on and behind the riser, in order to create depth and to surprise the audience with LED effects, seemingly appearing from nowhere.

The KNV Lines, however, were attached to the truss gates behind the risers and supported the KNV Dots, rather than be used as an independent show element.

The E350s were installed in a row directly in front of the riser and provided extremely bright beam work and moving lighting effects.

“We got on really well with our GLP setup,” reports Hermsdorf. “As a rock ’n’ roll version of the S350, the E350 has a great output and still has a great presence, even in the dark colours. They’re also great as a beam lamp.”

Although his personal highlight are the KNV Dots: “They were highly effective and, above all, easy to integrate into the show,” he enthuses.

“If necessary, you can also easily close optical holes in the stage and bring a nice depth to the stage design. The high luminous efficacy of their 30W power pixels was really impressive!” www.glp.de

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Nainita Desai

Breakthrough Brit

NAINITA DESAI: BREAKTHROUGH BRIT “I recently finished working on For Sama, which has just been nominated for an Oscar,” Nainita Desai tells me. Since winning the Breakthrough Brit Award at the BAFTAs in 2016, that award’s title has been a very apt way to describe Desai’s rapidly ascending career.

The British composer is speaking to me at her home in London, as best she can while her cat tries to distract her.

Words Adam Protz “The Oscar nomination is quite wonderful.

I spent a year and a half working on For Sama — it’s a very intimate portrayal of the female perspective in Syria.”

Indeed, For Sama is a scintillating documentary, which shows its director, Waad Al-Kateab, attempting to raise her infant daughter in the midst of the Syrian conflict.

Its Oscar nod is richly deserved.

“The film is really a love letter to Waad’s daughter,” Nainita says. “Despite all the chaos of the war around them. And the hardest thing as a composer, is you have an ego, and want to show off what you can do with the music.

“It really is difficult to hold back and be

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restrained. The images and the story are so powerful, and the music had to carefully interweave around all of that, and support the narrative. To be true to the film, I brought in a Syrian violinist who is a refugee. I like to think his playing is the aching heartbeat of Aleppo.”

And even more recently, Nainita completed work on The Reason I Jump, the acclaimed book-turned film for which she has provided the score, hitting screens this year.

“It’s about to have its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival,” she says. I ask if she worked on The Reason I Jump as extensively as she did on For Sama. “I worked on this one for about a year — the book was written about

10 years ago by a nonverbal Japanese boy with autism. He communicates via this teleprinter.

So the film is a cinematic, immersive experience about non-speaking autistic people across the world.”

Desai has to pause for a second as her cat is taking pestering to the next level.

“I had to illustrate this intense sensory world of the book by working closely with the sound designer. The sound design represents the science of autism, while the music represents the emotional response to autism. For example, a trait of autism is liking repetition, so the use of oscillation and repetition in the music evokes a very cathartic release of calmness for autistic people.

Nainita Desai

Breakthrough Brit

“Because the people we follow in the film are nonverbal, I wanted to give them a voice through the music...”

“And because the people we follow in the film are nonverbal, I wanted to give them a voice through the music. I took phrases from the Japanese book, and they’re sung in a very abstract, fractured way to mirror all these different autistic traits.

“And again, to be truthful to the film, I worked with Elisabeth Wiklander. She’s the cellist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and is autistic as well. She’s the cultural ambassador for the National Autistic Society, as well as being this amazing cellist!”

Desai is developing plans to have the music performed live in London, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements on that.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her profession, Desai is a big user of Spitfire Audio in her creative process of coming up with orchestral parts.

“I have all the Spitfire libraries, and know [Spitfire founder] Christian Henson well,” she

says. “They’ve become my go-to libraries for strings. I’ve been using Spitfire for about 10 years now. Of course, I try to use as many live elements as possible, but I work in a lot of varying budgets, so Spitfire can be a great help with that. I do have fun manipulating the sounds of the libraries to get my own sound out of them.

“I also use SoundToys a lot. Decapitator is one of my main go-to plugins. Tools like SoundToys are important for me, as being a film composer is a very fast-paced at times having these tools you know you can rely on is so helpful.”

So we wait patiently for the release of The Reason I Jump. In the meantime, be sure to see the unbelievable For Sama, a film that demands to be seen — not least because of Desai’s beautiful score. www.nainitadesai.com

59 Headliner

Electronic

Zeds Dead

ZEDS DEAD

Zeds Dead are knackered. The Canadian electronic music duo of Dylan Mamid and Zachary Rapp-Rovan have just arrived in London, after a very late headline slot in Paris the night before.

Words Adam Protz

When I ask what time their slot at London’s legendary Ministry Of Sound is tonight/this morning, Mamid says: “3am.”

Rapp-Rovan’s expression looks a little weary at the prospect. Of course, when they hit the stage, the adrenaline will kick in, feeding off the thousands of dance enthusiasts in the room. But, understandably, it’s these inbetween moments on the road and in hotels where these nocturnal tours take their toll.

“There’s nothing going on in my brain right now,” Rapp-Rovan says when I ask what’s new with them. “So this interview is going to be amazing!” “We literally just got off the Eurostar,” Mamid says. “They don’t seem

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as fancy as they once were,” Rapp-Rovan says. “Not like those trains from the 1900s!”

As their manager enters the room he jokes: “maybe our manager can field some of the questions.”

Zeds Dead were one of the many names to emerge during the unstoppable explosion of EDM around 2010, but are one of a select few acts to still be going strong since, whereas many of those careers are actually dead.

Interestingly, the duo seem to effortlessly combine virtually every single subgenre that was floating around in the mainstream in EDM’s heyday: dubstep, drum and bass, deep house, trap — I could go on, but the point is you cannot pin Zeds Dead down with one, or

even a dozen genres.

This mini-tour that ends at Ministry Of Sound also saw Zeds Dead in Paris and Barcelona. “They’re three awesome cities,” Mamid says. “Usually when we come to Europe we do smaller towns or festivals that are out of the way, so this has been nice.”

Rapp-Rovan adds: “The dreaded Frankfurt airport connection at 7am! No sleep, on a bus going from one terminal to the other — am I painting a good picture?

“But in a way, I’m most excited about tonight,” Rapp-Rovan continues. “It’s the biggest lineup that we’ve put together.”

Tonight is set to be a huge showcase of the duo’s own label, Deadbeats. “We’ve got

Electronic

Zeds Dead

“We mess around with a lot of different distortions, which is really important for our sound...”

Dirtyphonics, Gentleman’s Club, Urban Dawn, GG Magree, it’s gonna be huge.”

Knowing London, Paris and Barcelona are all top-tier cities for dance music, I ask if Mamid or Rapp-Rovan hold one of those in the highest regard. “I’d probably say London the most,” Rapp-Rovan says. “If you really wanna hear electronic music, or any type of music, there’s so much coming through. You guys are spoiled over here.” “And the history of music here, too,” Mamid says.

Zeds Dead have just released their new album, We Are Deadbeats (Vol. 4). The reaction has been pleasing for the pair. “This album was us collaborating with a lot of the artists on our label,” Rapp-Rovan says. “It felt a little more free. The last album was our first album, and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and were maybe too perfectionist. It was a long process, but I’m proud of that album. With this one, it never started as: ‘let’s make an album.’ We were just making songs and then decided to put them all together. It has the necessary moments that make it an album. The goal is always just to make something great that people really like.”

We then get chatting about the studio ambitions of Zeds Dead. Rapp-Rovan explains that they’re each “beginning to build

real studios with instruments; guitars, synths and stuff. Up until now, it’s really just a laptop and speakers, or we’ll go to a studio and plug our laptop into the mixing desk.” Mamid adds that “we have been incorporating a lot more instruments — sometimes we’ll start a song just on a piano, or drums, it really depends! And beyond that, once we get to our computers, we’d be working with Ableton.”

“And within Ableton, nothing too out of the ordinary,” Rapp-Rovan continues. “Some of the Native Instruments stuff, Izotope Trash, and we mess around with a lot of different distortions, which is important for our sound.”

“For reverb, we definitely love Valhalla,” Mamid adds. “But honestly, we often just mess with the ones that Ableton comes with, we think it’s great. We do have a Universal Audio Apollo soundcard, and the plugins that come with that… they are sick! For vocals, processing, compressors, the old hardware remodelling, it’s really impressive.”

And with that, I leave the duo snacking on olives in the hotel restaurant, hoping they can squeeze in a 20-minute power nap before their all-nighter at Ministry Of Sound. We Are Deadbeats Vol.4 is out now. If there’s one thing guaranteed to wake you up, it’s this album.

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designed for the unique challenges of the live stage. Use it wired or with a

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before. dpamicrophones.com/2028

Dylan Dunlap

The Internal Struggle

DYLAN DUNLAP: THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE

It’s a very wet and windy Wednesday in the cathedral city of St Albans, conditions that are presumably not too favourable for a Californian. And yet, singer-songwriter/troubadour Dylan Dunlap, who hails from sunny Los Angeles, has made the train ride from the urban sprawl of London, where has been gigging, to the Hertfordshire city to perform his acoustic guitar infused pop music, opening for three metal bands at The Horn pub.

Words Adam Protz

This may sound a little mad, particularly considering this is a man with over one million Spotify streams, and a support slot for One Republic under his belt. But Dunlap is happy to explain, as we sit down in The Horn, an absolute hub of live music in St Albans next door to the City Station. As we get chatting, the bartender brings Dunlap his chicken burger and chips - noticing he looks very puzzled when asked if he needs cutlery, I explain that in the UK we sometimes say ‘cutlery’ instead of knife and fork, which draws a big chuckle from the American.

“This is the third show out of seven,” he says when I ask how his UK tour is going.

“Tomorrow I’m playing in Bishops Stortford.

I’m honestly so happy to be here — it’s nice to get out of LA for a bit.” I confess that I’m

puzzled to find him in St Albans. “Well, I was street performing in Vegas a few years back, and I met the owner of this pub and The Horn in Bishops Stortford, and we stayed connected.”

It’s very much worth pointing out that Dunlap has just performed at two legendary venues in London: Ronnie Scott’s, and The Finsbury. I ask him if he was aware of what a big deal these places were, prior to performing at them.

“Yeah, I mean Ronnie Scott’s was crazy,” he replies. “I also love to have the free time before the shows — I found this amazing cafe near The Finsbury called Blighty, and really enjoyed sitting there reading Harry Potter, and making friends with the baristas and casually telling them why I’m here.”

The way Dunlap makes these tours happen would be sure to make a lot of people very anxious: “The way I do it is I book the flight first, and then book the shows with the incentive of the flight. And then I love to meet new people every night and organically build a new following.”

The big talking point is the release of If That’s Alright, Dunlap’s latest single that speaks of learning to enjoy your own company.

“I have no idea how it’s doing,” he says with a laugh. “I mean, I do keep up with the analytics and to see what’s working. But the funny thing is this is the first song where I’ve put it out and then stopped caring about its performance. I just took pride in the fact that we did everything we could, put it out in the

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Dylan Dunlap

The Internal Struggle

“I was diagnosed as being on the autism scale, and it was kind of weird finding that out as an adult...” world, and then hopefully people resonate with it. And then it gets 300k streams in one week!”

Dunlap and I then dig deeper into the lyrics of If That’s Alright, with lines such as: “I know I look lonely and I sound crazy, but I’m doing well.” He explains that “it’s me trying to explain how happy some people can be isolating themselves. I’m an introvert who struggles a lot with mental health conditions.

But I feel really confident in taking myself to the movies, for a drink or even going to London on my own. So the lyrics are essentially me telling someone that they don’t need to worry about me. My father took off when I was a kid, so I’ve had to raise myself in a lot of ways.”

As you can probably tell, Dunlap is very much an independent artist, although he does have management now, which he refers to as “a family operation.” But, his achievements of over one million streams on Spotify, as well as supporting One Republic are quite considerable without label support.

Mental health is a hugely important topic

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for Dunlap in both his music and his personal life.

“I think a lot of stigmas can be broken,” he says. “I speak at schools a lot. My dream is to do a tour where I speak at a school every morning, put my guitar down and just talk about the things that are not talked about.

I was diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum, and it was kind of weird finding that out as an adult. But I want to make sure all of this was for something. I know that I have the blessing of being high functioning enough where I can travel alone, perform and take meetings.

“So even though I’m struggling so much internally, I don’t want to settle for a diagnosis online that says I’m screwed. I don’t believe that my relationships are doomed or any of those things. But of course, I do find human interaction difficult. I was misdiagnosed as a kid with OCD, anxiety and depression, ADHD. So being correctly diagnosed has really helped me educate myself and know ‘this is why this happens’, etc. I like to think of it as a weight that’s pressing down on

my head at all times. It’s noisy, it’s loud, and there are ways to work around it. I second guess everything; I can’t choose anything off a menu.”

In terms of his long term plans, Dylan offers a beautifully philosophical declaration: “I’m mostly looking to maintain this happiness that I’m striving to keep. There will always be something to complain about, whether it’s my living situation in Los Angeles or as an independent artist.

“I’m more than happy to tell you my 12-month goal, my five-year goal, but the thing that matters most is that I get to do this full time. And work on what I struggle with most. Music is like my cheat. Using it to be able to talk. And things like seeing that a stranger in Norway heard my song, and hoping it helped them, or just gave them a three minute and fifty-four second break from their day.” www.iamdylandunlap.com

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moa moa

Guildhall Grooves

MOA MOA: GUILDHALL GROOVES

“It was pretty mindblowing,” James Ratcliffe tells me. Ratcliffe is a composer, singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist with a Guildhall School Of Music education.

He’s referring to the mini-explosion his new band, moa moa, are enjoying off the back of their debut single.

Words Adam Protz

Said single, Yellow Jacket, has been getting a lot of press in the band’s infancy, but it’s the play on Lauren Laverne’s Radio 6 Breakfast show that has blown his mind. Drawing millions of listeners every morning, it’s quite something for a debut single to get onto Radio 6.

Three out of four moa moa members live together in South London, so drummer Matt Taylor didn’t have to travel far to deliver the news to Ratcliffe. “Taylor came into my room a couple of mornings before the show and said ‘this is happening!’ Lauren (Laverne) spoke to our plugger and told us she really digged the tune. I’ve grown up with Lauren Laverne and she plays some really great artists on her show like Colin Stetson who I love. The fact she’s taken a punt on us, and hearing our band name leaving her lips — it was a good day!”

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I mention the band’s cozy living arrangement together, and Ratcliffe says: “I’d done production and other bits for the guys previously, and then I just wanted to move out of Hatfield, for obvious reasons! I was actually quite tentative about making this music into a band project — I wasn’t sure if it could work. But Taylor and Dan were both really keen, so I thought ‘sod it’. It is quite nice living together, having our little band meetings and coffees.”

Yellow Jacket makes quite the introduction for moa moa, opening with a huge kick drum, followed by a guitar line oozing with delightfully brash effects on its wonky rhythms. It’s a very strong first offering from the quartet out now via Council Records, home of The Wants and Talk Show. Council also recently launched the imprint Octatonic

Records with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood so moa moa are in very good company. They were due to play their headline show at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney on March 18th.

Ratcliffe studied his masters degree at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, very much regarded as one of the top conservatoires in the world. Upon completing his studies at the school, which makes up part of the Barbican Estate in London, James began making his living from a combination of composing jingles, music for contemporary dance, and teaching. Working in the field of dance seems to be a natural path from Guildhall, so I’m keen to ask how he feels this top-notch classical education has served him for the purposes of moa moa.

“I think I was a bit of a black sheep when I was there,”he says. “There were five

moa moa

Guildhall Grooves

“The Waves Aphex Aural Exciter accentuates harmonics and gives an extra layer of high frequency sheen...” or six people in my class who’d all come through conservatoires and were super into their Wagner and the classical music canon. Whereas I’ve always been into making electronic music and bands, and was always keen to try and bring electronic instruments in at Guildhall, which wasn’t always compatible. But they did teach me how to examine my own craft, and I feel like I learned how to analyse music, and identify if there’s a problem, structurally, harmonically or melodically. And even though it was more wanker-y arts stuff then, I’ve definitely carried over what I learned about colour, space and balance into writing a pop tune!”

Knowing full well about Ratcliffe’s production chops, we get chatting about his studio, or “talking shop”, as he puts it.

“I’m repping a Focusrite Sapphire Pro40.

I’ve had it for five or six years. I obviously wanted something where I could have eight channels for recording drums and whatnot.

Before that, I would just have super cheap

USB jobbies. It’s such a decent piece of kit to have — it’s not some boutique piece of hardware, but we’re all very pleased with the professional sound we got on the track.”

“In terms of plugins, I got the Waves bundle a few years ago. There are three plugins in particular that really stick out for me: firstly, their R-Verb, which is kind of like a space designer! It’s a really powerful plugin, because it can do really wet and dreamy stuff, but it’s also good at putting things in a room. The opening kicks on Yellow Jacket are MIDI, but I made it sound like it’s in a room and realistic thanks to R-Verb. Going through that, I could set the duration of the reverb to about 0.6 milliseconds, and give it that ‘room’ sound.

“The big one is the V-Comp, their vintage compressor. That’s got a lot of analogue emulator settings which are super powerful and cool. I’ll use it on a master buss and set the ratio high, which glues everything together on a track really nicely.

“I also use the Waves Aphex Aural Exciter,

which gives everything a bit more brightness and accentuates harmonics. I feel like I get an extra layer of high frequency sheen from using that! So I always use those three from Waves, they’re definite go-tos. The combination of those three on individual channel strips or a different bus just gets things the way I need them to sound. It feels quite integral at this point!”

There will be two more singles on the way in the near future, but in the meantime, make sure you get your teeth into the simmering Yellow Jacket while its fresh out the oven.

Those infectious grooves will likely see you inclined to want to hear much more from moa moa in 2020 and beyond. www.waves.com

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Jerry Harvey

Behind The Brand

JERRY HARVEY: BEHIND THE BRAND

We catch up with in-ear pioneer, Jerry Harvey, founder of JH Audio, the world’s leading IEM manufacturer. During lockdown, he and his albeit depleted team (for now) are still manufacturing product every day, and improving customer experience along the way.

Words Paul Watson

Since the live touring market as we know it screeched to a halt back in March, Jerry Harvey and his dedicated team have been working harder than ever. There have been deep cuts – like so many businesses around the world – but JH Audio’s audiophile market, as well as the company’s desire to constantly improve and evolve is proving to be the driving force during this testing time.

“One of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do was furlough 80% of my staff,” opens Harvey, adding that he will be bringing every one of them back into the fold as soon as live concerts come back – whenever that might be.

JH Audio’s Florida 8,000sq. ft. HQ is currently home to just nine core staff. There are no issues with social distancing, and every employee is wearing a mask; and it means product is going out the door every day, which seems pretty remarkable, all things considered.

“We will still be standing at the end of this pandemic - we may look different, but we’ll

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still be there,” asserts Harvey, adding that he has developed a totally different approach of making the ear pieces. “Instead of using what’s called a UV Cure product, which is a technique that I developed in 2000 when I had the Ultimate Ears lab, we are doing something different. Traditionally, every in-ear piece is made the same way: by either hand pouring UV material in and exposing it to light, or via 3D printers to make the acrylic, which we also do. But over the last two years we have developed a new C&C milling process for custom ear pieces, so we still do the digital scan and then we turn it into a C&C file where we can mill a very accurate shell and a very accurate face plate; it goes together very cleanly, and it’s a very machined, professional piece.”

“Furthermore, I have designed a new sevenpin sweat-proof connector which is very slick, and also a new 3D printed chassis that goes inside the milled shell, so it’s exact. We’ve also reworked the sound board so we have a nicely

milled 2mm-deep acoustic chamber which extends the high frequencies, and we have a piece of material that stops any sweat or wax from going down.”

Ultimately, Harvey says, this means the products are easier to assemble, more reliable, and look a lot better.

“And the beauty of C&C is that we can mill out of carbon fibre or resin and wood,” he says. “We did a piece for [Guns ‘N’ Roses bassist] Duff McKagan; we put his skull logo in there, buffed the logo nice and bright, and put on a shell that was made out of fine ground copper, then into a green patina resin.

That’s a pretty crazy piece.”

It is, indeed – check out JH Audo’s Instagram for a closer look.

“When you have a full factory and you’re cranking out product all day long, it’s hard to find time to go this deep, but now we have a lull in production, we have been able to implement this and make things much slicker and durable, much stronger than a UV

Jerry Harvey

Behind The Brand

“One thing I do know is, we are the only audio company in the US that is still manufacturing product every day...” cured shell. These are professional pieces for professional musicians.”

Jerry has been doing a number of Q&As on Instagram, too, in a bid to help the up and coming engineers out there that want to learn from the pros.

“They’ve been a lot of fun,” he says. “Every engineer is different, and the great thing about our market is that we have in the US 90% of the professional market and top performers, and their engineers have a depth of knowledge; they love to share it, and it’s nice to open that platform up.”

Conversation turns to JH Audio’s latest earpiece, Jimi.

“It’s an odd configuration – seven drivers - but it has a really nice sounding old school driver in it which does mids very well,” Harvey explains. “It’s as large as a quad driver but is a single, and has this very familiar sounding tonality to it. I started off tuning the mid driver to how I wanted it to sound, then I added a quad on top and a dual driver on the bottom - but I tuned it differently to anything else I’ve ever made. It’s definitely more of an analogue vinyl sound, so it doesn’t have a sub bass bump at the bottom. When it comes up it sounds almost like a Led Zeppelin kick drum rather than a disco kick drum, if that makes sense? So I have rounded it, added a bit more

mid than normal, to create a very natural and pleasant sounding ear piece. It’s very detailed, warm and analogue – I wanted to give it a little more contour than usual. I’m trying to give the best performance at a price point, and when you consider Jimi costs less than half what [ JH’s flagship piece] Layla does, it really is a great value piece.”

Artists become familiar and very comfortable with a certain sound signature and tonality, and Harvey admits that even if he thinks it’s better, sometimes it’s not: “I remember John Oates wanting something with a more forward vocal, so I demoed Angie and Layla and Roxanne – and he loved Angie with that flat bottom and a plateau from 1k-5k which puts the vocal out front; that’s the piece that singers have gone to. Would I want to listen to high fidelity music on it? Maybe not, but it’s a tool for a job. So you can’t question whether it’s good or bad, only if it makes the artist comfortable enough to perform in front of people.”

Does Harvey think that as audio quality gets better and better, artists expect more?

“Oh yeah, it’s the law of rising expectations: you have to continue to push the envelope in all technologies,” he says. “In the beginning, the improvements were huge: for example, we went from a dynamic to balanced armature.

Then I brought out the dual driver, which was a 100% improvement; then the JH7 piece was maybe a 20% improvement. In the audio world, it’s hard to keep this happening as time goes forward.”

It’s an incredibly challenging time for everyone in the audio business, but JH Audio certainly aims to keep the bar as high as possible from user experience to customer experience, and Harvey believes this will put the manufacturer in the best possible position once we start to come out of this madness.

“One thing I do know, when we did strip down to a smaller crew, as far as the US is concerned, we are the only US audio company that is still manufacturing product every day – and we are still only five to 10 days of turnaround time,” Harvey concludes. “And as the order flow increases, we will stay to that. We are very socially conscious, and we are doing it responsibly, but the main reason we didn’t shut down was that I couldn’t not be able to repair someone’s pieces or put stuff out. When it’s back on, people will need these in-ears right away, and we want to be in that position to do it as quickly as we can.” www.jhaudio.com

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Q&A: beabadoobee we chat to the brilliant beabadoobee, whose sound has been making waves globally, about her 2020 brits rising star nomination, fender next, and youtube tutorials...

When did you first start to consider pursuing a career in music, and who were your musical inspirations?

When I was 17 my dad got me an old beat up acoustic guitar because he saw me sad and wanted to encourage me to do something. I started writing songs pretty much straight away and only recently, even within the last few months, have I started to think I can really do this as a career. Growing up I obsessed about The Beatles and 90’s bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, and indie folk like Mouldy Peaches - also a lot of Elliot Smith.

You went from traditional violin lessons to YouTube guitar tutorials - do you think this is a method that many people will follow?

My very traditional Asian family had the classic way of thinking: ‘play an orchestra instrument’ or ‘be a doctor’. [laughs] Today, people start off making beats on a laptop, but hopefully I encourage young people to pick up the guitar and rock out! YouTube tutorials are a great way to develop your own style, and go at your own pace.

The first song you wrote on your guitar was Coffee - what was the inspiration for this song, and where were you when you wrote it? how did this song change your life?

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Coffee was one of my early songs but my first full song I put online. I based it on my boyfriend and I was at home when I wrote it. When it started getting all the views on YouTube, it helped me want to write more and also brought me to my team where I started to work on the project and EPs. I’m currently recording my debut album!

You were nominated for a Rising Star Award at the BRITS - what does it mean to you to get this nomination, especially considering some of the past winners?

I was really shocked to hear I was nominated for this. When I was told I was sitting on the toilet and just thought “ Ok, this cool!!” Then I started to understand who else has been nominated in the past and who won. It’s an honour!

tell us about your experience with fender next, and what the brand has done for you...

Fender is such a great company. So many of my favourite musicians play Fender so I grew up seeing the brand all over photos and videos.

Their guitars are great and I’m happy to be part of Fender Next. I’m looking to stay close to the brand and keep playing their equipment when recording and for live shows. The team are amazing and are helping me with finding the right guitars and amps for my sound. It’s

“It’s important to champion artists who are playing guitars and making sure that in these electronic times, we don’t forget the classic guitar and bass sounds that we’ve all grown up listening to...” important they champion artists who are playing guitars and making sure that in these electronic times that we don’t forget the classic guitar/bass sounds that we’ve all grown up listening to. I’d love to have my own Fender model one day! www.beabadoobee.com www.fender.com

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