Dunable tunes as Lester watches
. . .
This is the world premiere of audio from Intronaut’s new album Valley of Smoke, which has a tentative release date of October 12 on Century Media. The song is called “Elegy”.
“Elegy”
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I’ve heard it live three times, at two Intronaut gigs in Los Angeles this summer, and at the first show of their ongoing tour with Cynic and Dysrhythmia. (See dates below.) Each time it set the crowd alight. It plays to Intronaut’s strengths: a ridiculously limber rhythm section, expansive guitars, and did I mention a ridiculously limber rhythm section? Like his position onstage, Joe Lester’s bass is front and center. Danny Walker pushes and pulls against it with crisp, colorful percussion.
The new element is singing. This also happened to a band Intronaut is often compared to, Mastodon. Unlike Mastodon’s, however, Intronaut’s singing is firm but understated, and reminds me of Fugazi. On their latest albums, Coliseum and Kylesa have also sung more, with obvious Fugazi influences. Perhaps letting the Fugazi flag fly is what today’s metallers do when they discover that their voices can do more than just yell.
This track is a final, unmastered mix. It sounds great, with bite in the guitars and lively stereo imaging. Let’s hope that those things survive mastering. Intronaut’s last album, Prehistoricisms, suffered from the over-compressed mastering that’s epidemic in today’s metal. As a result, Walker’s drums went thud, not snap like they normally do. Here they snap, and are a joy to hear.
. . .
I observed one night of the Valley of Smoke recording sessions. This is what I saw.
. . .
"Again, with feeling"
. . .
Clear Lake Audio
North Hollywood, CA
May 26, 2010
Sacha Dunable is screwing up. That’s what recording is: screwing up until you have the perfect take – or enough material for studio magic. Dunable sits next to producer Josh Newell, who makes him play take after take. I don’t hear much wrong, and I’d like to think that I have good ears. But Newell is in the producer’s chair because he has better ears than mine. His ears are hearing less-than-perfect takes. So he stops Dunable every so often, moves the cursor back in Pro Tools, and says, “Do that again”.
Dunable is incredibly stoic about it. Not only is Newell telling him that his playing isn’t good enough, so are his bandmates Dave Timnick (guitar) and Joe Lester (bass). When one member of Intronaut records, the others are there to critique his performance. (Walker is the exception. After recording his drums, he leaves the sessions. He just doesn’t like being around for such details.) So Dunable has three people breathing down his neck, plus two observers in the room, me and a friend of the band. You’d think that recording would be a private activity. No one likes to screw up in front of other people. But here Dunable is, patiently screwing up in front of all of us.
. . .
"Still not loud enough, still not fast enough"
. . .
Recording grinds to a halt when Timnick discovers that Walker has screwed up. In one bar, he misplaced a kick drum by something small, like half a beat. Evidently the kick is an essential accent in the song. Anxious discussion ensues. Newell suggests moving the kick via Pro Tools to the correct place. The alternative, of course, would be getting Walker back into the studio to play that kick. That’s ludicrous, so Newell moves the kick. This disturbs me briefly. Of course, one function of studios is to perform studio magic. But Intronaut’s music is very organic. They are not the type of band that is assembled in Pro Tools. So it’s jarring to see them use studio magic to fix an error. Still, it’s not like (a) they’re putting Walker’s entire performance through studio magic, or (b) one could tell anyway.
Problem solved – time for a cigarette break.
Outside, I hear stories of Newell’s higher-profile clients, which include pop stars and nu-metal bands that shall remain unnamed. Evidently one such band, which has been in the studio for the last two years, will take a riff to Newell and ask him to make a chorus out of it. Fixing a kick in Pro Tools suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.
. . .
Recording feedback
. . .
Next is recording feedback for one song. Feedback is not necessarily a spontaneous burst of noise. Tonight it is a sound carefully sculpted in an acoustic enclosure Newell has constructed. While Dunable waves his guitar around and conjures up various pitches of feedback, I chat with Lester in the control room.
Lester is a musician’s musician, with a deep background in jazz and funk. His bandmates have other backgrounds, which creates an interesting dynamic. Walker comes from metal, and his predilection for blastbeats drives Lester up the wall. Once during practice Walker and Lester fell into a funk groove, and Dunable tried to jam along. The way Lester describes Dunable’s lack of rhythm is merciless.
But Intronaut are not jazz or funk or metal so much as they are all those things. A metal drummer, a jazz bassist, and two guitarists – one a polymath and the other very white – can come together to create something singular. That’s clear from what I hear tonight. After feedback recording finishes, the band plays me demos of the new album. They’re fantastic. Walker’s drums and Lester’s bass are instantly recognizable. The musical depth is obvious even without mixing or perfect takes. All that screwing up is in the service of something good.
. . .
INTRONAUT TOUR W/ CYNIC & DYSRHYTHMIA
Remaining dates
Jul. 30 – Minneapolis, MN – Station 4
Jul. 31 – Chicago, IL – Bottom Lounge
Aug. 01 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick
Aug. 02 – Toronto, ON – Opera House
Aug. 04 – Montreal, QC – Café Campus
Aug. 05 – Boston, MA – Harpers Ferry
Aug. 06 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
Aug. 07 – Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero
Aug. 08 – Washington, DC – The Rock a – Roll Hotel
Aug. 09 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
Aug. 10 – Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
Aug. 12 – Orlando, FL – The Social
Aug. 13 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room
. . .
Very cool write-up. Always interested in studio reports. I don’t have a lot of experience with Intronaut, though. I tend to think perfect takes are overrated in the metal field but if they like that approach I’m sure it’s most important that they listen to their own record at the end of the day and are satisfied.
Also ‘half a beat’ is a very large timespace to err inside, unless the tempo is 300bpm or something. Though I get you, a kick being even fifty milliseconds late or early on an important accent can sound totally off. I don’t have any ethical problem with pro-tooling that if it’s an easy fix because doing a whole new take (drums are notoriously difficult to do ‘punch ins’ for) = money the band could better spend doing something else.
I’m a big fan of Intronaut and I agree with your complaints with the production on prehistoricisms. I loved the production on the Challenger EP. This song sounds perfect as is and shouldn’t be touched. Regardless of how the production turns out I am confident that the material will be top notch and sound great live. Is there anywhere this track can be downloaded?
Really enjoyed this sneak peek, Cosmo. The production on Prehistoricisms didn’t bother me as much, certainly not enough to hinder my enjoyment of that record.
Definitely looking forward to this record – and specifically, Lester’s bass work – especially after hearing this track.
Looking forward to hearing this when I get home… I am completely unfamiliar with Intronaut, and I will be seeing them on the 9th, so this will be a good primer. Thanks!
Fascinating stuff. Thanks, Cosmo.
This song sounds really swell. Looking forward to the new record.
I really dug Prehistoricisms, though I understand the complaint about the production. This new song sounds really good. It doesn’t veer too far off, but it’s a change. The clean-ish vocals are reminding me a lot of Baroness.
I’m still trying to decide if I like this. It’s not as technical as the other records. That is not a bad thing at all, but the bass is playing something like 00 00 000 00 00 00 0 on the B string, while on Prehistoricisms it would probably lead the “clean” section. I also feel like their “clean” vocals aren’t doing anything new, only a recreation of what other Sludgemetal/Stonermetal bands have already done.
Wow, fucking awesome. I love this band and this, although different, is great. Full boner.
For some reason I never checked out this band. I like Mastadon OK, but not enough to care about similar bands (I prefer Kylesa’s energy and groove to Mastadon’s prog). I like this quite a bit and enjoy the “pre-mastered” sound. Hopefully they take a light-handed approach to mastering as it really can kill a lot of the “organic” vibe if overdone.
As a fan of their entire catalog (woah!), I was a little disappointed in Prehistoricisms, but it’s because I didn’t think the songs were strong enough and didn’t really hold that element of surprise Intronaut songs normally have. Felt throw together. But if this cut if any indication of the new album, sounds like I’ll like the new one just fine.
For anyone interested, Prehistoricisms (mp3 version) is on sale at Amazon for $5… I’m gonna go ahead and pick it up sight (or I guess sound, in this case) unseen and hope for the best!
This is great, and the vocals are a welcome change. Hopefully the mastered version stays close to this sound, like most folks I just didn’t dig the sound of Prehistoricisms compared to Challenger and Void. Either way, great band!
First, Fugazi had two singers. Second, none of this sounds remotely like Fugazi.
I haven’t tried much Intronaut before, but I enjoyed the track…
Like others have said, I’m always interested in behind the scenes with bands. I can’t get enough of the making of the album DVDs or YouTube studio diaries. I also really enjoy tour diaries/blogs…
If i really like a band, I want to know what has factored into this album they’ve created or this great show that they put on. This documentation gives an insight into these factors…
Also their lives of studio sessions or having adventure from venue to venue every night is much more exciting than most people’s day to day lives. I’m always up for hearing about adventure and misadventure.
Hopefully more bands will invite you into the studio, or maybe even on the road, so we can get some more of these insights.
I never really cared about the band, but I really liked this track. I’ll check their discography.
And it’s always great to read studio reports like this one.
“That’s what recording is: screwing up until you have the perfect take” – Well, that’s one train of thought. Some feel there is actually a curve to the quality of performance vs. number of takes. The first 1-3 takes usually being the best, with a substantial drop off after that, which doesn’t begin to pick up again until takes 15 or 20 (forget which…the curve is out there on the internet somewhere). But typically you never reach the quality and excitement generated from those first couple takes.
This has been in line with my recording experience. I’ve become somewhat reactionary against the perfectionist philosophy, which I feel can, taken to extremes, bleed the recording of some of it’s essential feeling or ’soul’. Usually the 1st or 2nd take is the one I keep. Neil Young espouses this extensively in his Bio, ‘Shakey’, saying that in the studio, you always keep the tape running, and you always try to preserve the magic of that first take, warts and all. It’s part of the magic.
Or at least close enough for rock and roll.
I didn’t expect such a positive response for sitting in a room and watching a band record, so I’ll see if I can wrangle up similar opportunities in the future.
David – I’ve heard about that curve, too. Probably the higher number of takes these days is due to the often unnecessary perfectionism you mention, or that producers sometimes want too many takes so that they can have material to fall back upon for whatever reason. Personally, I agree that if a band is worth its salt, it should be able to do the job sooner than later.
First of all, thanks for the positive review. Hopefully, the rest of the album gets as positive a response as this one has. But if I may weigh in for a moment…
In my opinion, the “perfect take” is dictated by the material and band you’re working with. Sometimes, that means it has to be technically flawless. Other times, it’s more about nailing the feel. The process for recording a band/doing takes depends on the final goal: the way things operate on a session for a Fugazi record would be completely different than how you’d work with Fear Factory, for example.
For the song in question here, the goal was to get a takes where Sacha’s playing best lined up with Danny’s. Since one the major goals of the recording was to keep things feeling natural, there were parts of the song where Danny would play ahead or behind the beat, and we had to record the rest of the tracks in a way that most complimented the performances at hand. Sacha being the first to track after the drums were done meant that he just has to lock with Danny. Dave then has to lock with their parts, and Joe is stuck as the glue making it all work in the end.
If you listen to the track closely, you can hear tuning and intonation issues (they’re tuned down to F# which no guitar is meant to handle), and there are sections that fall ahead and behind the beat. However, at the end of the day, it (hopefully) feels like a band playing together and not some overly edited, sterile, studio creation. Moving Danny’s single kick was done to tighten up one small flaw in an otherwise phenomenal performance (not to mention, we couldn’t get him in to fix that part, schedule- or finances-wise). At that point, making a quick fix (and it was less than half a beat), is the best choice because it keeps up the workflow and doesn’t take away additional time from guitar tracking.
I just don’t want everyone to think that by going for “perfect takes” that we were trying to make an overly sterile/soulless recording where Intronaut’s musicianship takes a back seat to the ability to make everything technically flawless using digital editing.
Having seen the show at Station 4 in St. Paul last night, the album is going to sound killer. They played three new songs, this one included, that are incredible. Really, really looking forward to the opportunity to hear the album.
Josh, thank you for your comment, it’s very interesting
Thanks, Josh, for weighing in and clarifying. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the record.
First of all, let me just say that I LOVED Prehistoricisms, probably one of my fave albums of that year. I liked them fine from before, but IMO they really stepped it up a notch with the progression from that album.
When I saw them last Monday opening for Cynic, I was definitely impressed by the new songs, including this one; however, I found the stage “moves” of the bassist (Lester) kinda amusing. I also agree with Jessica above that the clean vox sorta remind me of John Baizley (of Baroness).
Looking forward to the new album.
Fuck yeah can’t wait fer this shit!
Interesting points. Thanks, Josh, for the explanation.
I forgot to say that I really do like the song.
Re-reading and listening to this now. Deadly review, deadly song, deadly discussion. Can’t bleedin wait now!
where is the track?
i want to listen to it but its gone for some reason
can someone put it back please?
We’re working out problems with our audio player right now. Check back in a day or two, and thanks for your patience!
thanks for the reupload!!
intronaut are amazing!
come to israel!!
Man, sounds great…added a little groove, which is important. Vocals are a little weird tho.
I love this music I really do. Together with Ulcerate they offer the best and most original music in the scene.
I think the main problem with the guitars is what sounds like an attempt to bring atmosphere, when actually it sounds much more sporadic. Great riffs tho. Very enjoyable & impressive!
By the way, would not hurt to write something more of a song, then what sometimes sounds like exercises