Happy New Year from J. Paul Productions!
Greetings Friends,
The second half of 2013 was eventful to say the least! I’ve been all up and down the East Coast working on a lot of cool projects. Here’s a few highlights of the past few months.
J. Paul Productions gets a new home!
In October, I moved my operations into a new studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn! I’ve decked it out with acoustic treatments and instruments, and it’s become quite a cozy place to mix, edit and do smaller recording sessions. I’m also sharing the space with The Rooks, The Riot Act, and Trot Fox, who use it for their rehearsals.
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Music Projects
This week I’ve been in the studio with Ladyfriend, mixing their new EP. I’ve been trying to make a record with frontman and fellow North Carolinian Dru Zucchino for years now, so these sessions have been a real treat! The record is wonderful, too—imagine Flaming Lips meets R. Kelly meets Phoenix.
The biggest project I worked on in 2013 (probably ever) was the new Mel Hsu album, Call Home the Crow, which we’ve just completed! This is Mel’s most ambitious work to date; the album features about 26 musicians and we recorded it mostly in the beautiful Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan. Look out for it in late February!
In September I did some sessions with Philadelphia’s Big Tusk. They all live together in a big old house; I visited and we threw down a couple tracks “almost live” in their basement—and they came out great! Check the tracks out here.
I’ve been working with Josh the Word on the early stages of his new album. Josh gathered a bunch of his favorite musicians in Woodstock this fall for a composing/producing summit to get the ball rolling, and since then we’ve been cranking out beats in Brooklyn. I also worked with Josh on his recent tracks with The Riot Act, which you can check out here.
Film/Video Projects
In December I mixed the feature-length documentary Grady Tate’s Windmills, a portrait of the legendary jazz drummer and singer. Director Matthew Pitkoff interviewed many greats for the film, from Ron Carter to Taj Mahal, as well as following Tate in his daily life and behind the scenes of performances.
In the narrative film world, I recently mixed Abby Horton’s new short film One Summer, and Nick Singer’s feature film Other Months. Look out for both of these on the festival circuit in 2014!
Later in January I’ll be shifting gears a bit, working as a location recordist for the comedic webseries DIBS, created by Tracy Soren and Jessie Jollies.
Looking forward to many more exciting projects in 2014! As always, thanks for listening.
Jared Paul