"Abraham" The Kin & The Fine Line of Production Values

I've had the latest album by The Kin sitting on my desk for a few months now, and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it. The music was good, but I was a bit at odds with my own aesthetic. The music was good, but it was good like "guilty pleasure" good. The lead singer has the power to sing from NYC to LAX, and the croon of John Legend and Peter Bradley Adams (formerly of eastmountainsouth). The instrumentation was flawless, I mean, high-gloss, wax-paper on a metal slide, shrink-wrapped and vacuum sealed perfect. It was so perfect as to be too perfect. This what I mean when I say that the tunes are "guilty pleasures". They've got the kind of production that makes you wonder if they even know how to play music, or if everything is tweaked and levelled and polished until it's almost lifeless.

You see, in my mind, there are three levels of production, all with a very fine dividing line. You've got the under-produced, garage/basement/bedroom quality of most diy efforts, the obscenely perfect, not a whiff of character or scuff, over-production of most pop-stars, and then you've got the intimate, delicate balance between the two, a perfectly produced, idiosyncratic, unique sound that hits all the right notes (and leaves in a few of the wrong ones, too). Tonight I'd like to talk about a few examples of each of these types of production, and what they all mean to me.

We'll start off with the over-production of a band like The Kin. The album opener, "Nowhere to Now-Here" is a perfect example. It's got some fading-in, swirly guitars and didgeridoos, an overly emotive vocalist, and a string-filled crescendo to accompany the chorus to the rafters. As it fades in and out (a technique I'm absolutely guilty of loving), you begin to grow a bit suspicious about the motives here. Is this the band's doing or is this the result of some overzealous, idiot-savant, knob-twiddler behind the soundproof glass. I can just picture the producer picking strings and swirls and pianos and all manner of tricks from the Phil Spector's Wall of Sound School of Production (probably from a night course at the local community college). It's not bad, per se, but it is over the top, and it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

The weird thing though, is halfway through the muck and mire of this over-produced heap is an utter gem of an acoustic number. The song, "Abraham", starts with just a vocalist - and his occasional harmony accompaniment - and an acoustic guitar. The religious overtones of the song are almost secondary when confronted with the unguarded honesty and closeness of this song. You feel like he is singing just for you. You can see the curls in his sideburns and the loose threads in the third button down on his black button-up. You can smell the cigarette smoke on his breath and feel the thick strums of his guitar. It's so good that you almost don't notice when the producer slaps his meaty mitts all over the last minute of the tune. The string quartet that bursts onto the scene at 2:56 is completely unnecessary and has to got to be the most heavy-handed production I think I've ever heard. The important thing, however, is the question that you must ask yourself: Would this song even be possible if they hadn't created the incredible contrast in their sound with the preceding songs? Was this the one moment where the actual band was shining through the production? This is a great song, it just makes me sad that it is the one moment of "roughness" in an otherwise spotless field of sparkling diamonds.

As we work our way down the production level scale, we come to a shining example of a song that has very high production values, a rich tapestry of instruments, and yet it remains a human, touching experience. "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!" by Sufjan Stevens is that song. His vocals are perfect, and yet they are far from spotless. His vibrato and falsetto are not the most accessible vocals around, but when balanced with his normal singing voice and the backing butterfly brigade singers (not to mention the orchestration and pacing), this song is as close to perfect as you can get while still slapping your humanity squarely on your sleeve.

On the lower end of the perfectly-produced spectrum we have "Two Headed Boy Pt. 2" by the inimitable Neutral Milk Hotel. It's interesting to me that an album by a band as idiosyncratic as this isn't more divisive in it's fan base. I don't mean to sound callous, but if you don't love "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" you sir (or madam), are a philistine. You don't love music and you're clearly an idiot. Well, maybe you're not an idiot, but honestly, I think everyone that loves music hears this album for the first time and almost immediately puts it in their Top Ten. I have tried for several months to rationalize how I can love something with such bizarre vocals so much, and I have come up empty handed every time I think about it. I know from reading the 33 1/3 book about the album (thanks Taylor!) that the production was actually very involved, and that Robert Schneider and Jeff Magnum pored over the techniques and the instrumentation of each and every song. And yet, they have such a light touch that the end result is a beautiful balance of delicate and strong, rough and soft. It sounds like every song was done in one take, it's so off the cuff and natural. If you haven't heard this album, do yourself a favor and pick it up, lock yourself in a dark room with a pair of headphones and send your thank you notes to ThaBombShelter c/o Harry Smith...

At the very bottom of the production barrel is a band that I don't think I'll ever understand. Times New Viking have a new album coming out on Matador and several of my friends whose ears I trust and respect are basically shitting themselves over this impending release. Bill of "I Rock Cleveland" is a big fan, and that's actually where I got this track, "Drop-Out". He actually describes their sound as, "broken boom-box production". Which I would have to agree with. When I first listened to the song, I had to check the bitrate of the mp3 because I was convinced I had just downloaded a piece of shit rip at like 24kbps. But I was wrong, the offending tune was at the comfortable 192, it was the bullshit recording - which probably was done on a broken boom-box - that was to blame for the terrible sound quality.

Now, I'm no audiophile, but I at least appreciate it when music sounds good to my ears. Which, really, is what this whole post was all about. I love listening to music. I love listening to music that sounds good, and whether the vocals are pleasant or idiosyncratic or traditional or falsetto or grating, the instruments raucus or gentle or nonexistent, I want it to be well-produced and ABOVE ALL, I want it to SOUND GOOD.
"Nowhere to Now-Here" The Kin
"Abraham" The Kin
"They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!" Sufjan Stevens
"Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2" Neutral Milk Hotel
"Drop-Out" Times New Viking

***BONUS MP3***
"Abraham" Sufjan Stevens (NOT a cover)

The Kin: Official MySpace Buy
Sufjan Stevens: Official Buy
Neutral Milk Hotel: Official Buy
Times New Viking: Official MySpace Preorder