Interviews

Halvorson's engineer on Artlessly Falling, and on several of her previous recordings, is Nick Lloyd, owner and engineer at the label Firehouse 12, which he cofounded with brass player Taylor Ho Bynum, another Anthony Braxton protégé. Lloyd's other production/engineering credits include albums by Bynum, Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, and the Kronos Quartet. Lately he's been collaborating with composer David Lang, cofounder of Bang on a Can. Lloyd is also a musician, a Hammond B3 specialist who has played on recordings by The National and Taylor Swift. I asked Lloyd about working with Halvorson.

"Mary's concept for the music is so clear at the outset (and I'm spoiled by this) that we are really just working toward a transparent representation of her vision for the music. There is still a lot of work on the mix to do once we're done tracking, but since we have worked so much together, it makes the balancing much less subjective.

"We recorded a big space, but the only things in the big space were the guitar and the bass. We actually had some trouble getting the horns to blend because they were recorded in a booth and were really too clean, too dry initially. The big space really helps with the upright bass tone; it is so nice to work in a room with almost no resonances in the low end for bass."

I also asked Lloyd about miking Halvorson's guitar. "As far as the mic, on her recent records, we have used a DPA 4099 clip mic, which allows us to get the mic element very close to the guitar, and doesn't move relative to the instrument," he said. "And I try to use as many ribbon mics as possible. :-)"