Magnetophone/Sea Saw

This was originally going to be just a short review of a record I liked very much, but as time went by I listened to it way too much and wanted to know more about how it was recorded and put together. The album is by a band called Sea Saw and is called Magnetophone, although since there are so many bands using the see saw-type name the band name is becoming the album name. Hence, Magnetophone.

Magnetophone is really only Trevor Campmann, a one-man-band home recordist who used a four track reel-to-reel deck to it's fullest potential in creating Magnetophone, the album. His work is nothing short of meticulous, finding the right sounds for the instruments, layering a thick buzzing pop drone, and when it's time to write a catchy hook (and there's a good handful here) he delivers the goods. Plus, a lot of the tunes use lyrics about recording technology as analogies for personal trouble, like "microphone has died, lose the tone" or "erase my tapes, my batteries are low" which totally hit home here at recording-geek central.

I caught Trevor in the middle of a band practice, as Magnetophone also reluctantly exists as a live vehicle (with extra members added), and we chatted briefly about recording.