M. Ward, Moby, Smith Westerns & More Record/Mix at The Magic Shop
It’s been a minute since we checked in with The Magic Shop, one of NYC’s favorite, longest-standing recording studios. Here’s what’s been happening:
Moby at The Magic Shop’s custom wrap-around Neve series 80 console. Photo posted at Moby’s blog
Legendary engineer Ken Thomas (David Bowie, Public Image Ltd., Sigur Ros) mixed Moby’s new, largely acoustic/orchestral album, with Ted Young assisting. (Click for some words from Thomas on the Moby record.)
M. Ward tracked material for his new record with Tom Schick engineering, assisted by Brian Thorn.
Smith Westerns were in with Chris Coady tracking and mixing their new record, Dye It Blonde for Fat Possum. The record was mastered by Joe LaPorta at The Lodge.
Earlier last year, producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Editors) brought The Kooks in to track at The Magic Shop.
Lenny Kravitz was in this past fall tracking for his upcoming album with engineer Tom “T-Bone” Edmonds, assisted by Ted Young.
Singer/songwriter Leslie Mendelson mixed her new record as Melody Kills at The Magic Shop with Steve McEwan producing and Kabir Hermon engineering.
Producer Jimi Zhivago and engineer Brian Thorn mixed Jenna Nicholls’ latest record.
Rock legends Alice Cooper and producer Bob Ezrin stopped by to track for a couple of days. Ted Young assisted on the session.
A few Grammy-nominated records were also recorded at The Magic Shop last year, including Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and Norah Jones’ song “Chasing Pirates,” and the “Best Historical Album” nominated “Alan Lomax in Haiti” 10 CD box set was mastered in the Blue Room — an audio restoration, archiving and mastering suite — by Warren Russell Smith and Magic Shop owner Steve Rosenthal.
Also in the Blue Room, Russell-Smith continued audio restoration work for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, and mastered albums for Melody Kills, On The Brink Recordings, Oh Whitney, Glass Rifle and These People. He also worked on mastering Rockstar Games’ “Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmares Original Soundtrack,” and continued his work mastering and restoration of the 1973 Newport Jazz Festival.
In the “Red Room,” also dedicated to restoration and mastering, engineer Jessica Thompson mastered Ryat‘s Avant Gold, Jenna Nicholls‘ In The Blooming Hours, The Nowherenauts‘ Delightfully Distracted, produced by Kevin March, Mitten‘s debut EP, John Holk and the Sequins‘ If You See Her, and continued working on concerts from the Newport Jazz and Folk Festival archive.
Visit The Magic Shop at http://www.magicshopny.com.