Were you recording yourself when you were young?
When I was 13 or 14, a friend gave me a 4-track and it blew my mind. I realized, "Oh, this is magic! I can do multiple tracks." As any producer/engineer does, you slowly build out the pieces over the course of your life.
What happened after your 4-track cassette?
I had a brief period when I was 17 or 18 where I was courted by Epic Records. It's a part of my history that I forget about, but it is integral to my history of recording. I was going to all these incredible studios in 2001. The recording industry was changing, but also the structure of how people recorded records was changing. I asked a million questions, and I feel like I learned a lot from being in these studios and working with experienced producers. I was coming of age in a moment of flux. I was working with these producers at the beginning of the home studio thing, and now it's so prevalent. So, ultimately, few of my records are made from start to finish in a proper studio.
Were you recording songs back then?
I don't think anything good came out of it, musically speaking. It was like, "Let's try cowriting!" I thought, "What does this dude in his 30s or 40s have to do conceptually with what I'm trying to get across as a 19-year old girl?" I decided that I wanted to learn how to record myself in order to have more power and control over my work. Eventually I did move on to recording in Pro Tools. Then I got the Tascam 388 8-track that I recorded Mama and the Mama Acoustic [Recordings] on. It's such a behemoth.
What was it about the 388 that captured you?
I loved how easy it was to use. I loved the way that drums sounded, in particular. Mama did eventually get put out into Pro Tools – there weren't enough tracks. There's a lot of string layering. But all the drums, vocals, and bass are recorded to the tape. I limited myself on the acoustic record. I recorded it here in Portland, actually; the vocals and the guitar at the same time.
Did it remind you of the 4-track?
The process of it, yeah. I liked having to rewind and get to a spot in the overdubbing process. Also, I love Pro Tools. That's how I recorded the last couple of albums.
I assume you were starting tracks at home and building them up, working on composition?
On my own, yeah. I do a lot of the recording myself. I have a separate studio space, which is a bit of a luxury in the city [New York]. I can play drums in this place. My only neighbor is 97 years old, so we have this symbiotic thing. I don't mind that I can hear her television blasting sometimes. She doesn't mind that I play drums. This World Is Too _____ For You [2019] was a little different. I made all these tracks that were demo-ish, but I knew they were going to be foundational. Then we recorded all the strings live.
You told me it was a day of recording to get all the string sections.
Yes! One day for all ten songs, which was highly ambitious.
You wrote out scores, and then people were playing them in the studio?
Yeah. I worked with an incredible arranger named Michi Wiancko. She's a virtuosic violinist and also an arranger and composer. It was great to work with another violinist, because we were speaking the same language. The scores were impeccable, thanks to Michi.
Did you get to listen to mock-ups first and make suggestions?
Oh, yeah. We would go back and forth. I gave her the demos, then she would send MIDI plus her performing a bunch of the parts. It started out actually as a project that was for live performance. There's this brilliant music series called Liquid Music. It's the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra – people from the orchestra will play at these concerts. The curator is Kate Nordstrum – a genius about thinking who could match together. She's who introduced me to Michi. We did a performance in St. Paul in November 2017, and then the Metropolis Ensemble continued the project. The director of Metropolis is also a great visionary; Andrew Cyr. At one point, he asked, "What do you want to do with this?" I said, "I want to write a few more songs and make it a record." He commissioned the second half from Michi, and Metropolis also performs on the album. I got it to a point where the structures were all in place, and there was enough sonic material for the ensemble to play to. We went into a beautiful new studio in Williamsburg called Electric Garden. It couldn't have been done without incredible players. It was five players, plus a French horn, which was isolated. There are a lot of lines that I sing, and the horn also plays. I thought of the horn as a vocal duet. A lot of the arrangements come from synth parts that I sent to Michi, so they're reinterpreted. She drew from that and figured out a way to make the string players give this pulse, or this arpeggio, or the horn to do this gliding line that I might bend on a synth.
Like pitch wheel?
Yeah! Of all the tracks I effected after, the horn was the one I did the most treatment to. That sound is so specific, and I sometimes wanted to smooth it out. I used a lot of Soundtoys [plug-ins], like PrimalTap. I always put their Decapitator on the sub-bass to give a little grit.
I assume there was bleed between the mics?
Exactly. We had a stereo pair for the room – Chris [Botta, engineer] brought his Neumann KM 84s – and then each person had at least one mic on them. We had a little isolation on the upright. That was helpful, because that was another instrument that I knew I might need to extract. It gave me a little bit more control. I hadn't added any live drums at the time we recorded the strings, so it was all drum machines. The rhythm was very clear, and we gave them a click whenever they needed it. I feel the record allowed me to step back as a violinist. I brought the knowledge of a violinist, but I don't play that much violin on the album. I wanted to be a producer, in that way. I wanted to stand outside of the room and listen instead of worrying about my performance.
Who picked the players?
Andrew from Metropolis chose the players. Afterwards, I had to sort through all of the tracks and takes and make sense of it. That was where the producer side of myself was challenged in a new way. I'm used to producing myself and cutting or hacking away at whatever I've laid down. But with this, all these characters were inhabiting my studio with me. Even though I was alone, I built such a relationship with each of the players through the process of post-production after we got out of that studio and I was back into mine, doing the pre-mix. "What do we keep? What's essential?" I find those decisions to be the most challenging in some ways, once you've put all your ideas out. Ultimately you have to serve the song. I guess that you can see from my discography that I'm not static. You can record a song a different way and let people in on the process of that, if you wish. A record is, "This is where the song is right now."
That's also about finding the letting go point.
Absolutely. If you're not careful, you can work the song to death. That's absolutely how I learned. For [2016's] Promise I spent a lot of time making that record, and I tried so many different approaches. At one point, I tore away all of the rhythm completely and started again.
The whole album?
The whole album. I thought I was basically done. I thought I was ready to mix, and then it took me another six months. I was sampling constantly, finding samples, and trying to understand how to support the rest of what I'd built. But the process was astounding, as though I had taken away the scaffolding – the drum machines I'd built the songs around – and here the structure, to my surprise and delight, was still standing.
