Studio Visit: Key Club Recording Company

Benton Harbor, Michigan, isn’t the first town that comes to mind for music recording. Yet the small community is home to Key Club Recording Company, one of the best and most beautiful studios in the Midwest, founded by producer/engineer duo Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins.

Q&A: A Lull

A Lull: Confetti (Mush, 4/12/11)

A Lull: “Some Love”

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Since its formation in 2008, indie electronic quintet A Lull has expanded its lineup and grown into a much louder and more textured unit. After experimentation with a plethora of objects and instruments, the Chicago band has crafted a sonic landscape that’s truly its own. Between thumping rhythms, trance-like vocals, and layers of percussion, A Lull’s debut album, Confetti, pulsates from start to finish.

The band’s live performances are equally infectious in energy. Before Confetti‘s record-release show, two-fifths of A Lull — Nigel Dennis and Todd Miller — discussed making the album and how the music will translate live.

There is definite progression between the Ice Cream Bones EP (2009) and Confetti. What kind of growth did you experience between these releases? Or what did you feel was missing with the EP and the smaller lineup?

TM: [Ice Cream Bones] was pretty early on in the recording process, and those were kind of the first five songs that we got finished, and I think we were just trying to figure out what we sounded like. After that EP, we kept trying to figure out what we sounded like, and I think we all just kind of moved more towards a much louder sound.

ND: I think it also came from playing live together. When we wrote the EP, we hadn’t really played live that much — our first show was December of 2008, and the EP came out in May [of 2009]. But when we were recording that EP, we had the songs already written to play them live in December. We’d extend a song and make it a lot crazier on drums and sort of build on that — so it naturally happened.

Dianogah

Dianogah: Dueling Basses and Melodic Distortions

On its most recent album, Chicago’s Dianogah ventures into harsher sounds, while simultaneously collaborating with local artists Andrew Bird and Stephanie Morris to incorporate melodic, subtle sounds.