White Wilderness (Dead Oceans) is the latest album from the San Francisco-based John Vanderslice, and he’s joined on it by the classically trained Magik*Magik Orchestra. MMO artistic director Minna Choi arranged and conducted the Vanderslice-written music on the LP, which was recorded in a whirlwind three-day session by producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Walkmen, Bill Callahan). Vanderslice himself is no stranger to production, running the Tiny Telephone recording studio for 14 years and having produced records by the likes of Spoon and the Mountain Goats. Now he can add MAGNET guest editor to his resume, as that’s what he’s doing at magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Vanderslice: We built Tiny Telephone 13 years ago. It’s now a fine, fully functional adult. I guess I missed the stress, as I just started construction on a new b-room called Minitel (my wife Isabelle named it after France’s first noble and important pre-web online service). It’s an incredible thrill to draw plans out on a blank sheet of paper with your fellow engineers and watch walls go up a year later. It’s also quite exciting to do electrical work with the main power on, using a few tricks taught to me by Ian Pellicci, one of our stellar engineers. I’ve only been zapped once (it actually hurts a lot less than what happens to singers when they get shocked on a mic.)
One day, the room above will look like this:
