Hay Perro finished mixing and mastering their new album "Eastern Ideas of Death", a relentlessly unapologetic multi-stop tour through two different countries --- metal and punk. After completing guitar and vocal overdubs at Get Small, producer Dan Agosto mixed and mastered the album with the band at Heart & Soul. "Eastern Ideas of Death" captures Hay Perro in a perfectly timed series of we-play-what-we-want excursions. "Ride the Laser" feels like you could be in a packed-to-the-beams punk club, but then there are songs like the title track that are more metal, with drummer Emily Agosto laying down a big-kit (she doesn't actually play a big kit, she just plays it as if it was a big kit when they lean metal) tom groove under a series of harmony lead lines.

None of this sounds like different styles when they put it together --- it sounds like Hay Perro. Chris Grubbs puts a careful and powerful thought-picture into his lyrics and lead vocals, Brian Gonas' guitar adds perspective as much as raw drive. "Eastern Ideas of Death" is due out in the Spring, according to the the band's site (hayperro.com), but you shouldn't have to wait quite that long to hear some of this, we may have a track to post in the next week or so.

Deep Earth can put imagination into musical form about as well as anybody. They write long, spacious instrumentals that spiral through whole spectrums of musical ideas, and they've just finished mastering their third album (their second with the current line-up of James Shaver, Otto Junker, and Tony Janas) with Dan Agosto at Heart & Soul. We're posting a short excerpt of their track "Pamplemousse", one of five tracks on the LP. "We usually start writing with something as simple as a drum loop, maybe a synth loop, and then we layer from there" is the way James explains it. Although the tracks are instrumentals, with their unique ability to develop, and then morph through creative ideas, Deep Earth always manages to convey their soundscape-like visions with the clarity of voice. The album will be out on vinyl in the next couple of months, and until then, check back here, we'll have more.

Here's a really short podcast that traces the development of the "Wouldn't It" production. It starts with the intro from the final release, but then shows five different stages of the song's development, playing different progressive versions of how the arrangement and production of the track changed. Each of the versions is from the same section of the song, the second verse and chorus, until the podcast closes with the rest of the song from the final release. If you've got a few minutes, take a little trip through the process of how a singer/songwriter and her producer find the track that they want to make from a beautiful song.

Claire
"Wouldn't It"

Claire Massey is the original vocalist in 'ohana Dreamdance, co-writing "Made To Love", and singing on four or five of the group's first tracks, only one of which ("Let Me") has been released so far. But most of Claire's music has come out of her successful collaboration with highly respected Chicago guitarist Tommy G., a collaboration that has included writing, performing and recording a number of noted projects. The two were founding members of the nineties pop group, now cult favorite, Tami Show, which included Claire's sister Cath, and after Tami Show's run through two major label deals ended, Claire and Tommy continued working.

Their 2002 LP Suncat Muse included the single "Butterfly", which, in complete defiance of the sordid financial realities of modern corporate radio, reached the Top 20 of the national AC charts as a true independent single. Their production technique has always come from traditional band-based arrangements, and it begins when Claire and Tommy write a song, usually a guitar driven progression from Tommy that Claire will put lyrics and melody to. When they're ready, they find some great musicians, usually the same ones, book studio time in a great room with a great producer/engineer, and work together with everybody until the track is right. It's the approach of most great bands, and a very different process from the producer-and-vocalist approach of most beats-driven music, like dance and R&B.

Here's a first listen to three excerpts from Black Light Saints' new EP Impossible Picks ---- "What Happens Next", "Baby Girl" and "Cattle Skull". The record is already getting talked up a lot, both because everybody who's heard it is so into it, and because of the high profiles of the members --- Ephraim Cuellar, Britton Wetherald, and Alex Brandi, not to mention the production by Dan Agosto. More from us in our story about Black Light Saints and from them on their Facebook.

Dan Agosto was at Heart & Soul Studios all last week completing the mixing and mastering for an exceptional debut EP by Black Light Saints, and even though he only delivered the masters on Sunday, there's already a great review on the EP out of the UC Berkeley paper The Daily Californian --- but more on that in a minute. I can't post the link to the review until I explain a couple of things, even though it was pretty amazing. "In Impossible Picks, Black Light Saints know what the electronic genre begs for and deliver it in 27 minutes of hypnotic synths and infectious bass" is the way Daily Californian writer Cynthia Kang closes the first paragraph of her well-written review, and she goes on, even more enthusiastically.

Black Light Saints:
Excerpts from "What Happens Next", "Baby Girl" and "Cattle Skull"
from Impossible Picks

Claire Massey cowrote this track with Johnny Nevin, and with Claire getting ready to release a new EP called "Hearts and Minds", it's a good time to listen to how she crafts a melody and lyric. Made To Love is due for a full remix and release early next year, and "Hearts and Minds" includes a track called "Wouldn't It", that Nevin produced, and that will show up here soon, maybe with some of the backstory.

For more about Claire and "Hearts and Minds" her site is planetclaire.com, and you can find Made To Love at iTunes, Amazon and in the U.K. at 7Digital.

Remixing ... one of the most variable, the most fun, and the most challenging (if you want to get it right for everybody) facets of record producing. D. Jeremy's track "Stomp Your Feet" was always an unlikely candidate for a remixer with any real common sense -- it's in the Beats-Per-Minute stratosphere (one-fifty-six), it's a rock track, and it's nothing like any of the 'ohana or 'ohana Dreamdance tracks so far. Have a listen, or check it out at iTunes, at Amazon, or at a rock site called Shockhound.

So 'ohana Dreamdance remixed it (brought it down to 142 so you can slip it into your Trance set, but that might not be a great idea), and it goes like this:

That's the full version, there's a radio edit available for free (legally): here are some of the links:

Stomp Your Feet (mp3)
iTunes ••• Amazon ••• Shockhound

Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin worked with an amazing artist named Shayna Swanson, composing an as-yet-unreleased track they call "What Was Beyond". Shayna has a live video of her performance that you really have to see: it's at YouTube.

Dan Agosto spent the weekend in the studio with Hay Perro. Although there as bass player in the band, it brings to mind some of the projects that Agosto has worked on. Here's a few of the stories, if you didn't see all of them:

• A track from Glass Bricks mastered by Agosto
• Extensions Dance 2010 Showcase
• ohana Dreamdance “Time Now (Piano)” Free Download
• A live track from Bomba Deer recorded by Agosto
• A track from Powerplay fyi recorded and produced by Agosto