The Stargazer's Assistant

One of the best of the new groups to rise in Europe in the last few years is Guapo. Their album 5 Suns instantly caught my ear when it came out . In 2004 I had the pleasure of meeting them in person and mixing a few shows in France and Belgium and more recently at the RIO festival last year.Dave Smith and Daniel O'Sullivan are hard working prolific and dedicated musicians who besides of Guapo collaborate on numerous other offshoots and projects.
The Stragazer's Asistant - The Other Side Of The Island is a soundtrack for a exhibition/installation of Dave Smith Sculptures and what I like about it is the fact that besides serving as a background to the installation it also makes a fascinating listening experience on its own. Much use of the studio as a creative instrument and interesting sound designs this album evokes moody atmospheres sinister sub sonic events and some startling climax's.
Recommended !
The album can be purchased here
Here is a Sound Sample
And another one

Resurection & Soleil Zeuhl Releases

I am Back On Line!


I know I know its been a while...I have been neglecting this space but believe me I have all the right excuses: Bought a new home, went through the whole circus of renovating it, then moving in and the time needed to equip and install (literally nearly gave me a hernia :-) , and just as we thought we are nearly settled we received the biggest gift -My new baby girl Michal!

oh and by the way I still had to find time to work on new projects.



Today I just received the latest batch of releases on Soleil Zeuhl a small French label that specialize obviously in Zeuhl related bands and artists.I have met Alain Le Bon the owner of SZ in Carmeaux at the RIO Festival and we both agreed to collaborate on future projects on his label.
So for this batch of releases I mastered 3 albums

1) BBI - BBI
This was a trio of Philippe Bussonnet (Magma,One Shot) Jean-Claude Buire (Ex Offering)and Laurent Imperato (ex Xaal) they recorded this studio album in 1996 they played intense and powerful kind of jazz rock (actually much more rock then jazz) and for some reason or other the master tape was "lost" .So my task was to do some sort of audio restoration on the existing source. I think we succeeded as the result sounds fine and is able to carry through the energy of the music with enough resolution to make a a nice listening experience. Bussonnet was happy with the final sound and thats a good sign.
Here are some sound smaples:
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3


2)Amygdala - Complex Combat
This is a band from Japan that plays a dense complex progressive rock with lots of that hard intense typical Japanese energy. It was quite a challenging work as they do not speak good english and resort to using the Google translator. The drums were recorded in France by Daniel Jeand'heur (the drummer of One Shot) and the rest in Japan and my job was to make the whole thing a bit more homogenic and round.
Here is a sound sample: Sample 1
3)Setna - Cycle 1
This is the debut album of this French group that was long time coming. Setna are inspired from the more melodic side of the Zeuhl aesthetic and came up with a thoughtful and
sensitive album .I enjoyed working on this and had a good rapport with Nicolas Cande the composer .Basicly the mastering of this album was quite straightforward the album was recorded and mixed professionally and my task was to enhance the overall dynamics tighten u the bottom end and make sure the whole thing flows in the right pace. Here are some sound samples:
Sample 1
Sample 2