Mirror Sound: A Look into the People and Processes behind Self-Recorded Music
by Lana Fleischli
A few weeks ago, I interviewed musician, Spencer Tweedy, graphic designer, Lawrence Azerrad and photographer, Daniel Topete about their new book Mirror Sound. Mirror Sound highlights the skill of self-recording. They feature a multitude of artists who discuss their style of self-producing music.
It is truly an inspirational book. It’s not just about music, it’s about all creative media. It’s fascinating to read about how these artists work and how they decide what they want their environment to be like or how they motivate themselves. It’s a great read and you can buy it at the link at the bottom of this page.
Also, Lawrence made a playlist of songs by the artists that are featured in the book!
(clockwise) Spencer, Lawrence, Daniel and Lana
Lana Fleischli: Since you interviewed a bunch of artists, how did you decide who specifically you wanted to interview?
Spencer Tweedy: The list kinda started out with people that I’ve come across or met playing music, or through events I’ve gotten to a part of with my dad. And then we added to that list with other people we admire, whose music we admire, or whose perspective we thought would be really good to include in the book. And just kind of over the course of a few months sculpted it into something we thought was-- we tried to make inclusive.
Lawrence Azerrad: Just to add on for Spencer’s thing, everyone had to record themselves. No engineers, no producers. Like that was kind of like, the rule.
LF: It’s obviously growing because I took a class at school before I even knew about this book, and the class was about self recording. It’s obviously grown a lot, so how do you think this will affect the music industry in the future?
ST: Well I wouldn’t claim that our book would have quite that much power, to change the whole industry, but I think we all hope that it reaches even one person and encourages them to start recording on their own-- manifesting the art they want to make in any medium of their own. I think that would be really fulfilling for us.
LA: I think also Lana, you make a good point. As the other options get better, and there's more diversity of options, that only makes the industry richer. And we’re not saying that recording in a studio is bad, it’s just that it’s nice that you can record album-grade quality in your bedroom, on the road, or with an engineer in a studio. I think the broader diversity of options the better.
Daniel Topete: I have a friend, he records under the name, “Grady Strange”. He read the book. He before would like save up his money and like, go to a studio with a friend, but on this album, he decided to borrow a four-track and he recorded everything at home and he took it to the producer after to engineer it and do all that. So, it changed the way that he recorded, which I thought was cool to see.
Nnamdi Ogbonnaya
LF: Most of the people that you interviewed were younger and there were only a couple older artists. Do you think self-recording is generational, since the younger generations are more likely to know about technology and how to use it?
ST: It’s kind of ironic because the older folks that we talked to in the book, their experience with recording technology is actually a lot more complex than that of some of the younger people in the book. So I think you might’ve been talking about the interview with Emmit Rhodes, and you know, he started self-recording almost as early in history as anybody possibly could-- at least after the invention of magnetic tape. The skills that he had to build and the way that the processes that he used are-- you know, they are significantly more complicated than opening up voice memos on your phone, or Garageband on your IPhone, or even Protools on your computer. So in that sense, the question is kind of flipped on its head. For some of those older people, they actually had higher technological hurdles to overcome and they did. But just more generally, the question of technological ability in other senses, you know, it requires some motor ability, and hearing and whatever abilities. It’s not like the bar doesn’t exist. It’s not like there are no barriers for anybody to make art in these ways, but the cool thing, the thing that I find really inspiring and the thing that we were trying to convey in the book is is that the barrier is probably lower than you thought if you have never come across these processes before.
LA: But sometimes when the barriers are low, there’s still a degree of figuring out things. And sometimes when you do have a lower bar technologically, there’s a challenge to making it good. And just because the software is easy, it still takes a certain amount of challenge and self-motivation to follow through and make good work.
LF: I have a question about the format of the book. Obviously the photography is very important, I’m wondering if you notice when you’re looking in their studio, was there something that everyone had that was similar? I remember looking at Mac Demarco’s studio with like crazy full verus Greta Klein (Frankie Cosmos)’s [setup] which is just her bedroom. But was there [equipment] that everyone had? That you felt was something that you need to have?
DT: Nothing comes to mind. I think that was what we’re trying to do in the book was show like you said like Greta or Mac-- those are complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I guess it’s just how you want to approach it?
ST: The only thing that might be in common in every single one is the microphone of some sort. But even then you know, Open Mike Eagle, his creativity is making beats. He doesn’t need a microphone for that, because he can use found sounds, and samples, and synthesizers, and whatever else going straight into the recording medium. But yeah microphones are definitely a common thread. And microphones-- they can take a million shapes. There are a million different kinds of microphones. But at their core, it’s just something to convert vibrations in the air into signal on the tape machine or the computer.
LA: You know, Spencer and I did an interview on this book cycle, and somebody asked like, what your favorite tools are, or what are the best tools to get started. And Spencer answered, [with what] I thought was a really great answer. Basically the answer is whatever tool works best for you. And Daniel does such a great job of showing the different personalities in the studios, so you can see like Bob Bruno is just this-- really like, orderly. That’s just a really cool part of the book is just seeing this diversity of artistry reflected in the space. And that like, some of them are really chill. One of my favorites is Jonathan Rado’s. Like, how does he get-- there’s just cables in there!
ST: And also to that end, I think something Daniel captured really well are the non- instrument, non- musical equipment things, that are still a crucial part of people making the space, the space-- making it right for them. Those photos of Ty Segall’s Simpson figurine are-- like all of these things that add character to this space, and make them feel more welcoming, are kind of one the same level as, you know, the vintage keyboard that they have in the corner.
LF: Yeah, well what was really interesting that I noticed was that you could notice the vibe or the personality of every artist just by how they set it up. How did you try to capture the personality of the artist?
DT: I mean all the rooms were, someone’s comfortable space. It was very well-curated. I think it kind of-- a lot of them told the story before I got there, and I just had to figure out how to get that out of that room I guess-- I don’t know. Yeah, every place I approached it kinda differently. It was always run the gun, just show up and figure out the room. And most of the time the room just kinda spoke to who the person was already, so that made my job a little easier
ST: Daniel, I will say, watching Daniel work, he’s definitely like, unfussy about it. And achieving really good lighting with a limited amount of equipment (as you can see in the photos), and I don’t know, just clearly responding-- it seemed to me like responding to the space, and intuiting where what needed a little more emphasis, or what needed to be filled out, but otherwise, like he said, just letting the spaces and letting the people come across as they are.
Sharon Van Etten
LF: There are six chapters in the book. Did you already know what the six chapters were gonna be about before you did the interviews? What did the interviews inspire, and what was already planned?
ST: All we knew was that we didn’t want it to be like magazine profiles, because we thought, if a reader wants that, they can go to a magazine. Like this should be something different. This should be something more cohesive and woven together to be a book. We did not know the six chapters or overall kinda theme tent poles when we were going into the interviews and the photoshoots. Those came up later through lots of conversations between Lawrence and me on the phone. Just kind of like, hours of brainstorming and organizing all of the different thoughts, and concepts that arose in the stuff that we had collected. And then eventually, I laid out some notecards, tryna make sense of it all, grouped things together to find common themes, and burned through a lot of preliminary writing-- stuff that we ending up throwing out because we were just sorta like, on the path to figuring out what actually needed to be said. And then eventually we settled on those six themes, and tried to place all the artists within them.
LA: Sometimes you start with an idea… and when we were kinda like, on the early stages of what this book could be, it started with this idea of recording. We kinda drew that circle out bigger like: could it be about just creativity and starting, and how that connects to recording, and just making the idea richer. And to make the idea a little more big but specific at the same time, so it’s not just technical, but also kind of mental and emotional and creativity oriented. And then we also had a really good editor from our publisher who pushed us-- almost like kinda an advisor. And then being a different type of creative than Spencer and Daniel, the conversations that Spencer and I had a lot about making and process, and all those just kinda helped form those conversations-- or those “tent poles” as Spencer had said. Then you have the interviews where he got all this material from everyone. Then you kinda have to work backwards and say, “how do I put what’s in the interviews in these categories?” or, “Where are the categories inside the interviews?”
LF: You mentioned that you have different creative paths/ creative work. How did that click when you started working on the book? And how long did it take for you to make the book?
LA: Well Spencer and I worked about a year before we got the publishing deal, and that was a long evolution, and then Spencer and Daniel had a relationship separate to mine. And then once we got the publishing deal, then things started to kind of-- interviews started to happen, Daniel and Spencer started doing the photoshoots. I’d say it was about two years altogether.
ST: With a flurry of actual production at the end.
LA: Yeah, there was the making of the book, which was like really intense, but also the production of the interviews, like who’s in, who’s out, sending out asks, where in the country they are, how could Daniel and Spencer get to them.
ST: It was really tough to get everybody’s--- all the artists’ schedules to align because, you know, we couldn’t be flying back and forth all the time, and a lot of these people are in the same places so, it was this game of trying to string interviews together, so that we could do seven in a row in like five days or six days or whatever. That took a while to finesse, but I will say that right around the time that we asked Daniel to be part of the book, and we were getting the confirmation from Prestel publishing. Daniel was like, ready to go. He was texting me like, ideas of artists, (he lived in New York at the time), saying, “ I could go over to Brooklyn and shoot these people next week.” I was like, “I think we need to figure it out a little more-- I think we need to have this plan.” Of course by not heeding Daniel’s ready to-go attitude, we ended up in a position where we really really needed to make those trips work-- make those one week or two week long interview and photoshoot trips work. Thankfully, it worked out and we were able to collect a lot of stuff and got a lot of yeses. Most people said yes to our request which was really exciting. We didn’t have to delay things too much.
Mac Demarco
LF: I’ve been thinking about how disconnected people can be with technology. Most of the artist’s you interviewed were solo, so where does collaboration come in since they do everything themselves? We see collaboration in music and it’s an integral part. We are now living in this semi-virtual world, so how can we know if people will want to connect to make music in the future if they don’t have to?
ST: I have two feelings about that. One is that one of the most affirming aspects of the book to me is its focus on physical spaces and primarily through Daniel’s photography, we’ve been just raving about it a lot so far. But to rave about it even further, by depicting those spaces and by depicting them as well as Daniel did, I think that that is kind of, you know, returning physical spaces to their place as an important thing in our lives and as something that becomes like a partner in people’s creation, and then getting more of what you’re talking about, a meeting place. A place where people can gather and collaborate, and do things face to face. So yeah, the first way I feel about it is physical spaces are still here, physical collaboration and making art together face to face is still possible and it’s still feasible, and it still happens all the time. I think actually, after all this forced time away from each other, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if there was sort of a renaissance of making music face to face together again (once that becomes safe to do), because I think people probably feel a pent-up desire, or maybe have remembered their desire (if they spent a lot of time before this being in solitude anyway)-- desire to make music that way, because, I was just talking about this with my dad the other day, there really is a lot of music that is only possible to make when you’re composing together in another physical space with someone. Like more instrumental music-- really band music. You really have to be responding and reacting to each other's expressions like, instantaneously. That’s not something you can really do asynchronous like by sending recorded files back and forth, and even at this point unfortunately, with things like Zoom, they're just not low-latency enough, they’re not instantaneous enough for that. The other way I feel about it is, which I just kinda got to that the end there, is just really optimistic about virtual experiences getting even better and getting even richer, because everyone on this call and beyond who had to do anything over zoom or whatever this year has experienced how flawed it is. It’s a lot more advanced than things were five or ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, but in other senses, you can see the obvious ways in which it really needs to improve. Like, half the time, someone has to drop out of the call because their internet doesn’t work, so I think it’s also exciting to think about that: the ways virtual gathering will become more fun, and how it might be more able to facilitate the type of art-making that we want to facilitate in the future.
LF: That makes sense. People are gonna want to collaborate in person more after the pandemic. People really do want what they can’t have.
LA: I think it’s a little bit about the quality of the connection, not the technology, but the quality of the people that you’re working with. There’s a lot of people in the book that do collaborate a lot, or that are collaborators, like: Rory has a whole ecosystem of collaborators Tune-yards are husband and wife. To use one example in the book that actually came from Spencer’s dad, he mentions that he started taking ownership of this part of the process, because previously, he was working with people that didn’t care about this music as much as he did… Who do you choose to be your collaborators? I think that choice is gonna be more important. And I think that’s really what the book is all about-- not collaborating with people because you should, or you're thrown into the room, or the label or boss says you should work together. It’s finding people that you really like working with for the right reasons.
LF: You said something that reminded me of something that I wanted to ask, but then I lost my train of thought.
LA: I feel like interviewing is harder than answering. Do you write your questions down Spencer?
ST: Yeah, I would do bullet points in a fieldbook notebook. In the beginning as full questions, and then toward the end as “get out of jail” cards like if the conversation was failing.
LF: If you’re not good at playing music, what would you suggest for anyone trying to get into any creative discipline?
LA: It’s really interesting because Spencer and I did go on this journey, and it did start about-- it is about music, but like as I already said, as we got deeper into it, it’s about creative projects too. No matter if you’re a musician, or a writer, or a photographer, or a designer, or just a thinker! The stories in this book are a lot about starting on these projects and doing it and believing in yourself creatively, and following through on them for the right reasons and putting them out into the world for the right reasons. The chapters in the book kinda go through those cycles. I hope that it encourages people to play, and experiment, and believe in themselves creatively no matter what creative discipline you’re in. There’s a lot as a designer that I read from Spencer’s interviews that I feel like, “Yeah, I go through that too. I feel that way.” I don't think you need to be a designer to feel that way either. We’re all humans, all creative people, and you’ve just gotta believe in yourself and take those chances.
DT: I think a really important part of the book was showing that you could pull creativity for any-- it didn’t have to be music. I like that fact that it shows you that you don’t need all the best equipment. I think that carries over to photography. I really encourage people to get just an SLR film camera, one lens, and learn how to use that. Just have a full understanding of that. So, that could be the same thing with recording where you just have a laptop, you just have a mic, and you can still make these beautiful things. You don’t necessarily need the whole studio. Same with photography-- I have a million cameras, so I can’t really talk, but I like to start with a very simple setup.
ST: I think musically, a good thing for people to do who haven’t had any experience practicing an instrument is, if they have access to a phone, there are a lot of music apps out there that sort of put things at your fingertips. At the switch of a button, you can make beats and basslines and melodies with some of these apps… And it’s really fun! You don’t need to know scales, you don’t even really need to have a developed sense of rhythm or anything. You can just make choices, because a lot of creativity is about making choices, using your taste to sculpt things in that way. For music at least, there are some tools that make that pretty simple. That might be a fun place to start for some people.
LF: A lot of these artists don’t have a label, so when they are starting out, how do they get their name out there?
ST: Well, a lot of them release music by themselves on Bandcamp.com. They make an account, and they put their record up, then they have some sort of plan for publicizing it, whether that means hiring a publicist, or writing to publications themselves, or whatever. But then several artists in the book do have relationships with record labels. In those cases, the record label is responsible for distributing it digitally, and sometimes physically on vinyl, El-Ps, and CDs, and cassettes or whatever. And they publicize it,and they make sure it gets spread around and that the music find listeners. But a lot of musicians put it in the drawer. They just put it away,and they made it for themselves. They’ll listen to it later, maybe they’ll release it later. They’re making stuff all the time, and they’re not worrying about whether it’s going to be part of their next album, or cycle next year, blah blah blah. They’re just making stuff and trying-- sometimes the’re actively trying not to think about where it’s gonna go, and how it’s gonna get distributed because that can fill them with anxiety. Like Rory Ferreria talks about the second those thoughts enter his mind, all the creativity just deflates-- just leaves the room, and the beat that he’s working on starts sucking.
DT: I think making things for yourself is very important. In staying creative, you don't always have to put on instagram, you don’t always have to put it out in the world. It can just be growth of some sort. It’s kinda nice, it’s kinda great, just making things for yourself. Like this year I’ve started doing a bunch of weird little crafts, just to use my creative energy into something else, because it’s hard to photograph people in their homes.
ST: What kind of crafts?
DT: Stain glass currently.
LA: Stain glass! Talk about reviving like, ancient technology!... It’s important to find, like what Daniel was saying, what truly motivates you, what’s interesting as an artist to you, and like, why you’re’ making it. For some people, it’s not for a label, or not for a thing, or not for sale, or not for instagram, but for another purpose. Those purposes can be really different for different people. Personally, I design best when I have a problem to solve, and that usually comes from working with a client. And then when I am working on my own for my own stuff, it’s almost like the opposite. It’s like, I don’t know what to do! When I have a challenge, that’s when I have to figure it out.
Greta Kline “Frankie Cosmos”
LF: The question I have is motivation. Like making music in your bedroom seems really hard because of distractions on the computer and stuff. Someone in the book mentioned that idea. With everything at you fingertips, what are some things that people said have helped them focus?
ST: I think you might be talking about Sadie, Sadie Dupuis. She was talking about putting her studio in a different area of the house, so that she could be freer from those distractions, and enter a different mental space when she’s deciding to work. There are a couple different artists who put their studio in a backyard garage. Then there are even others like Tune-Yards who purposely rent space that’s like a five or ten minute walk away from where they live, so that they’re really separating, and setting themselves up to be focused when they go and decide to work. But I’m sure there are little tricks like turning off wifi on the computer, or downloading some sort of website blocker that some artists use, just practically to avoid getting distracted by all the different things that are going on on the computer. I think the best thing people can do is to flex and exercise their willpower muscle, but that can only take you so far. As everyone has been learning over the past few years, a lot of distracting websites or apps are really deliberately and scientifically designed to subvert your willpower, and to make it extremely difficult to avoid getting sucked into them without the aid of, you know, a browser extension that blocks it, or whatever other external control. There’s definitely some limits to how far the willpower can take up, but that to me seems like, going that route, trying to build focus just internal and inherently with your own mind seems like it also has kinda the most reward-- the most broad reward because it applies to everything, and you can kinda take it with you to whatever you do.
LA: I think you have to really want success. You need to have dedication and willpower. Willpower doesn’t necessarily mean like, being a marine and doing like sit-ups and push-ups, but, I’m like probably the oldest person on the call, and I’ve had portions of my career that have been really hard, and slow, and scary. To want to succeed, you have to put yourself into like, “I really want to succeed. I really wanna work hard at that,” and like, stay dedicated to that. At least for me, after a certain amount of time, feeding that part of the challenge feels good. You enjoy working hard because you know that you’re getting closer to your goal.
ST: Also to that end, that reminds me, a lot of the times that I notice I’m having trouble focusing on writing songs, or I’ve just been avoiding it for a long time. There are mental things going on that deserve reflection, and once they’re reflected upon, it can help focus follow kind of automatically. It can make focus easy again. Like, just to get more specific about it, there are times where I feel like I don’t wanna work on writing songs, because they’re gonna come out badly, or sometimes if you don’t know where it’s gonna end up, where you’re gonna put it out, that can end up sucking motivation out of it too for some people, like me, because it’s more fun to have an outlet, and to enjoy the excitement of sharing. Your ego wants to be rewarded. Sometimes the difficulty of how hard it is to focus can be tied up with all these other fears or anxieties that are going on, so maybe for some people, it’s not about practically avoiding Twitter and Instagram. Maybe they need to talk with a friend or even a therapist about the way they’re feeling about creativity and some worries they have.
