Music Book Review: Mirror Sound: A Look Into the People and Processes Behind Self-Recorded Music by Spencer Tweedy and Lawrence Azerrad

Mirror Sound: A Look Ito the People and Processes Behind Self-Recorded Music
by Spencer Tweedy and Lawrence Azerrad (Music 781.49 Twe)

Mirror Sound is an combination of interviews with self-recording musicians and large, intimate photographs of their working spaces. It’s not a HOW-to for self-recording. It’s more of a WHY-to. There are just shy of 30 artists featured here who all came to self-recording in different ways. Some started with their instruments or voice but didn’t want the pressure of recording in someone else’s studio. A number of them talk about experiences of marginalization that prompted them to find a way around barriers. Some were fascinated by recording gear, whether that means the immediate revisability in software or the joy of hands-on play with equipment.

 

This book is an invitation to self-record in your own way. The photos are not mere illustrations to break up the text, but an equal focus. You can read it straight through like I did. Or, you could dip into artist features toward the front 2/3rds or the text-heavy extended interviews with the artist in the final 1/3rd of the book. This is the kind of book that’s meant to be a source of inspiration here and there over time, not because it’s a general story of self-recording but because it offers so many versions of specific.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Understanding Records: A Field Guide to Recording Practice by Jay Hodgson.)

 

( official Mirror Sound web site ) | ( official Spencer Tweedy web site ) | ( official Lawrence Azerrad design web site )

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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