Source: Radio New Zealand
Wellington psych rock duo Earth Tongue’s latest album was recorded old school in LA with Ty Segall on production duties.
Multi-instrumentalist garage king Segall is famous for his lo-fi approach to recording, the result was Dungeon Vision a raw record, drummer Ezra Simons told Music 101 .
“I don’t wanna say rough around the edges, but it’s a raw record. And we worked with a pretty punk rock producer, you know. It was all fully analogue.
Earth Tongue.
Nicola Sandford
. So, we were quite limited in what we could do, with how many takes we could have.”
However, the back-to-basics approach was in some ways freeing, vocalist and guitarist Gussie Larkin says.
“It was quite hard to let go initially because we’d do a take and then we’d kind of debrief after like, ‘oh, I stuffed up this bit’ and ‘no, this bit wasn’t good.’
“And that was when Ty would come in and just be like, ‘that had the feel’, like ‘that had the thing, the magic. Don’t worry about the mistakes’.”
Earth Tongue IV M101 Music 101
Larkin and Simons who are now based in Berlin wrote all the songs for Dungeon Vision there before decamping to warmer climes in California to record it.
With no click tracks or computers, every track was recorded live to tape, Simons says.
“We mixed it in three days as well, together with him just after we recorded it. So, it was a pretty different recording experience for us.
Ty Segall produced Earth Tongue’s latest albumDungeon Vision.
Supplied
“And we’re really happy with the outcome because I feel like there’s too many bands in our genre that are just kind of too produced these days.”
Larkin had to let go of her “very deep perfectionism,” she says.
“This is a rock and roll record. And yeah, there’s little fluff ups in some of the tracks, and I love them now.
“We just had to show up and really do a great performance. There was nothing to hide behind.”
When it came to mixing Dungeon Vision, it was from studio to Segall’s trusty mini “mixing” van to see how the tracks sounded coming out of regular speakers, the award-winning duo say.
“He said, in all his records, which is probably like over 30 albums, he had done one record where he didn’t do the minivan test, and he doesn’t like the way it sounds. So, there was a bit of superstition around it as well,” says Larkin.
Earth Tongue are in New Zealand for a six-date tour taking in Kerkeri, Auckland, Hamilton, Dunedin, Christchurch including a matinee show before wrapping up in Wellington on 21 February.
Earth Tongue IV M101 Music 101
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
