Except I shan’t be mostly mastering because in all honestly I have no fucking idea what that is.  Apparently it is tweaking the teeny-tiniest of things in the final mix of a song and still somehow making the most significant of differences. I’ve heard a good masterer get the most amazing clarity of instrumentation from a shitty, over-compressed mp3 file, to the extent that it sounded amazing on vinyl.

We tend to use Reuben Taylor for our mastering these days.  As well as being a lovely (if slightly mental) fellow, he does an amazing job for a very reasonable fee in a very short space of time.  He was responsible for the Meursault All Creatures vinyl, as well as the gorgeous Rob St. John record and the King Post Kitsch Honeytone EP.

Anyhow, today Rory Sutherland, who helped me record and engineer the record, and I will be off with the final mixes for the split 12″ we’ve been recording with Waiters, Sex Hands, Dolfinz and PAWS and this will be the first time I have witnessed the process first hand.  So I’ll be sure to tell you what unspeakable wizardry takes place in the mastering suite.  Assuming, of course, that I understand any of it at all.

All these photos were taken by the fantastic Nic Rue.  Except the shit one.  That was Rory.

Broken Records may play bigger, better, sweatier gigs than this in the future – in fact I’d be fucking amazed if they don’t – but I am not sure they’ll play many more special to their grass-roots fans.  There is a real sense of goodwill about the band at the moment – they’ve signed to one of the best indie labels in the world, they’ve just finished their debut album, the hard slog of the festival season is yet to take hold, so it felt to me like band and fans alike were able to take a moment just just enjoy the current circumstances.  Although, as their lead singer and main songwriter Jamie said to me in a brief aftershow interview, the real work is only just beginning.

The sense  of occasion was hugely helped by the amazingly atmospheric surroundings of the Bedlam Theatre, so nice that Broken Records were happy to run the show at a loss, just to make for a special gig.  It worked.  The photos which decorate this review were taken by Nic Rue, one of Edinburgh’s most talented photographers.  I may not be a professional judge, but how she remains an amateur at this is beyond me.  Her set of pictures from this gig can be found on Flickr, here, and is truly exceptional.  But if you look at the rest of her work you’ll see that it’s no one-off.  She really, really is that good. Read the rest of this entry »