Two things happened to the producer’s lot when home recording went digital. We’ll cover the second later on, but before the laptop and PC, home recorders used cassette machines that utilized 4, 6 and 8 tracks on the tiny width of a store-bought Maxell tape. To increase the amount of tracks, you’d have to “bounce,” meaning recording on seven of the tracks, playing back those seven and bouncing them down to the eighth, then starting the process all over again. You got more sounds, but also more hiss. Now, with home versions of ProTools, a home recorder has as many tracks as he or she has the patience to fill. Filters combat hiss and various tricks can foil the sound of Do It Yourself recording.
It would come as a surprise to many that Reed KD’s new CD, In Case The Comet Comes, is DIY. Its notes claim it was recorded on the road, in many homes, many living rooms and a closet or two, yet there are very few audible giveaways. The songs are, for the most part, buoyant homegrown Americana, some mood pieces, all performed with vigor and commitment. The opening “This Is It” is a spare but lively folk tune with more than a hint of bluegrass rough & tumble. The following “If The Tide Swings” fleshes out the previous song’s hinted promises. It is a healthy start, even if the two are rhythmically similar and would have benefited with a couple dissimilar songs between them. Again, there isn’t a moment that screams ‘homemade’ but at the same time, there are no screams of plastic synthesis either as so many new studio recordings have a breathless, deathly precision to them. Reed KD has managed to strike the balance enough to indicate the album was made by living human beings.
While KD can handle the barnstormer, he is also adept with moodier pieces, such as “Space Vacuums.” There is a strange wit to his lyrics that, when combined with this particular tune, puts me in the mind of some Ben Folds/Richard Buckner hybrid. I’m a sucker for that ethereal, echoey slide guitar sound and it’s put to incredible effect here, making the song an emotional highlight of the collection. (more…)
