(We have a guest writer for this blog entry. Matt Marcil is the owner of Tweek Sound, a recording studio in Concord NH. Matt has done engineering, mixing and mastering for several projects on behalf of Bluntface Records and has over a decade of experience working in the industry. Check him out online at http://www.facebook.com/Tweeksoundstudio

Few written words express the feeling of music to all who read them. I am still exitedly looking for those words. So far the best I have come up with are: … Ya, got your hopes up, didn’t I? That’s the thing. When it comes to music there are few univerals expressions if any. What novel idea can a Jazz enthusiast say to a heavy metal lover that will make intrisic and personal sense?

This is the job of the audio engineer. We are the ones who are asked to figure out what makes music  musical. We are tasked to understand what touches people regardless of whether they like to hear the click of a kick drum or the throaty character of a viola. We are asked to capture that sound onto a recording.

But I am not in the mood to explain why an audio engineer is the person that is trusted to understand what any individual instrument should sound like in any given genre. I am more interested in getting my emotion across. And thus I will expound.

Sound is made up of two things; level and frequnecy. All sound or music you have ever heard is made up of these two things. It doesn’t matter if it’s the whine of jazz club saxophone or the chest vibrating thump of a Hofner bass guitar. It’s all frequency and amplitude. Understanding that concept is one thing but knowing intimately how to effect and manipulate those frequencies and amplitued accurately is something else.

But I am not in the mood to explain how a competent audio engineer will understand the complex relationship of frequency and amplitude. I am more interested in getting my emotion across. And thus I will expound.

No two musians interact and repsond in the same way and thus a person who can understand and translate the differing ways of communication to the rest is invaluable. 20 years of hearing musicians explain what a minor arpegio sounds like when done with a Mashall amp will give the audio engineer the edge in getting that message across.

But I am not intersted in explaining how combining different musical histories translate to audio engineer communication. I am more interested in getting my emotion across. And thus I will expound.

But that’s the thing. The emotions an experienced audio engineer will express are done through frequency and amplitude, personal interaction and session running, goals of the musicians and ways to get those goals acomplished. All these things are part of the audio engineer’s job and all of them will result in a better recording for your listeners. And what else would you expect?

Hi everyone. We hope your summer is going great so far! We’ve been working non-stop here at Bluntface. Here is what’s going on currently:

Brand New Interviews & Reviews for Otto Kinzel
Otto Kinzel’s 2011 debut solo album We Are All Doomed… has received a brand new review courtesy of the British Ezine Alteria Motives. A huge “THANK YOU” to Black Dahlia for writing this very in-depth and detailed piece. Read her stunning write up HERE.

In addition, there is a new interview with Otto in another British Ezine, Ringmaster Review. Thank you to Pete for giving Otto some press! Read the interview with Otto HERE.

NEW Virus Cycle album done! Now time for remixes…
The brand new Virus Cycle album, titled Zombiechrist, is finished! 8 brand new songs from Johnny Virum that pick right up where Alice in Zombieland left off. And now you have the chance to remix one of these songs!
Over the next 3-4 months, Virus Cycle will be releasing a single from the album Zombichrist, along with the album as a whole. Both releases will feature remixes from artists across the world. Your remix will gain great exposure through different social networks, as well as the various Bluntface Records websites. ALL remixes will be available for download on the main Bluntface Records website. Some remixes will be put out on the “Why Don’t You Love Me?” single as well as the official release of the album Zombichrist. Remix kits will begin distribution in the upcoming weeks. If you want to remix Virus Cycle, send your email address to viruscycle@gmail.com and a remix kit will be sent to you.

The first of these remixes is already available to listen to. Parasite In Agony just released a remix of the song Zombiechrist . Check it out HERE.

Did you download your copy of GET TURNED ON… yet?
The free Bluntface Records’ compilation album Get Turned On: Music from the Underground has been download over 2,000 times! So do to popular demand we’ve again included a download code for the full release in this newsletter. Featuring 38 unsigned/indie artists from all over the world. Go get your copy today!

We’re hard at work on an upcoming compilation album featuring unsigned & independent artists from all over the world. The title will be GET TURNED ON: Music from the Underground. It’ll be released online on Tuesday, July 3rd on www.bluntfacerecords.com .

The concept started out of desperation. We had grown tired of the same old crap that’s on the radio, in the press, on the TV…we were looking for new music that would get us excited again about the “indie artist”. We here at Bluntface Records sometime get so wrapped up in our day-to-day activities tending to the bands we currently work with that we get lazy about doing the hard work to find that next band or solo artists that turns us on.

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t “gotten my hands dirty” when it comes to searching for new artists who are really pushing the envelope in a while. And that’s a shame, because i was missing out on a lot of great music from acts that have only minor cult followings, or are strictly just “weekend warriors”. Thanks to a friend giving me a nudge and sharing some mp3’s of a band from his hometown named  Carnivora (https://www.facebook.com/carnivoramass ). I decided that this laziness on our part had to go.

So we put out the call; BANDS, WE DEPSERATLY NEED TO HEAR SOMETHING NEW AND FESH, PLEASE SEND US YOUR MUSIC! This request didn’t come from a guy at a label trying to compile an album or use it for marketing; rather it came from a music fan who wants to find the next great indie act that makes me connect with their material.

We got a TON of music sent to us. Almost more than we could really listen to. But it worked. I got turned onto some amazing bands that are right here in New England, and even some that half-way around the world. I ended up buying albums from several of them, downloading catalogs of their music from Soundcloud. I have a lot of it on my iPod; i work out to it at the gym; i cruise to it in my car. What a trip!

We decided to put this all on one compilation album, to share it with many of our subscribers and fans who have the same outlook we do on music, and who no doubt may have had the same frustrations with their current music scene (even at the local level). Or maybe they just want to experience something they haven’t heard before.

GET TURNED ON: Music from the Underground is a free, online compilation album consisting of 37 of those artists that sent us music. It also includes new music from some Bluntface artists as well. While it is a free download, you must be a subscriber to our newsletter to get it (you can do this by going to our website www.bluntfacerecords.com and using the NEWSLETTER sign up box on the bottom of the intro page). All people that are will receive a free download code upon release. I only hope that by putting this compilation out, you the fan will have the same reaction that I did.

Become a fan of these acts, buy some music, go to a show. The indie music scene is alive and well, and it is an honor to play a role in supporting it, even if my role is a tiny one in the grand scheme of things. Below is the list of bands appearing on the compilation:

GET TURNED ON: Music from the Underground. Release date-Tuesday July 3rd, online at www.bluntfacerecords.com featuring…

Sonik Foundry, TOURN, Sleeping Skin, Bradox64, Virus Cycle, Bob Dwyer, KINEL v VIRUM, Jay Van Der Funk, The Woodheads, Chemical Distance, Carnivora, Anima Reforge, Relative Souls, No Room To Breathe, Sys2matik Over0ad, ZTTK, ALDae, The Exorcist Poltergeist, Fractured Machines, Prostration, Polluted Remains, Embryo Synthesis, Get Well Connected, S.L.U.G., Ira-K Organisation, Toxi Craft, Fog Wizard, Endor, Varicella, Transdusk, Avoxblue, Black Thorn Asylum, Fear Passage, Kid Napalm, Kyle Godin.

Our official website, www.bluntfacerecords.com

Some of you may be familiar with the Boston-based Industrial band Virus Cycle. Some of you may not.

Quick summary: Virus Cycle is an Industrial-Metal act whose music is inspired by the oncoming zombie apocalypse. Like many Industrial & Electronic acts, VC is really just a one-man band. The man driving the train is Johnny Virum. In 2011, under the Virus Cycle name, he released his debut album titled Alice in Zombieland. Rather than going through the aggravation of dealing with retail and digital distribution, he decided to literally give the album away. You went to his website; you downloaded it for free. He was really successful as he had thousands of downloads from all over the world. At the end of the year he released a sequel of sorts to this album, a collection of remixes done by other like-minded artists for all over the glove called Return to Zombieland.

So after some time touring and doing the whole “promotional campaign” thing, it’s now finally time to start work on the second album. Johnny had asked me to produce it, and I eagerly accepted his proposal. I had contributed a remix for the song White Zombie, which appeared on the R2Z remix album, and really enjoyed the experience of working w/Johnny. And i was very flattered that he asked me to produce the album; apparently I did something right and he thought enough of my work that he wanted me on the board.

This isn’t the first time I’ve produced an album: I produced my 2011 solo-album We Are All Doomed: The Zodiac Killer, and also produced a number of albums for other bands and artists over the years. However what made this session so different was how liberal Johnny allowed me to shape the sound of the album. In almost all my previous experiences (my solo albums not withstanding) the band has had some pre-conceived notion of what they wanted to end sound to be like, but yet didn’t know how to go about actually achieving that sound. So they come to me and say “we want it to sound like this band’s album, or like that band’s album. We have no idea how they did it, so figure it out and good luck”.

Johnny was the total opposite: He didn’t have any glorious master plan for what the “end game” should be; rather he left it entirely in my hands to sculpt and craft the final sound. He has definitive goals and ideas for reference, but he let me do my thing without interfering. I had total creative freedom in crafting the songs and overall work. It was the most fun I’ve ever had producing an album.

In contrast to AIZ which had a much denser, layered sound in the guitars, and really Godflesh-Esq in the drum programming, the new album features more colorful guitar tones. I really tried to not just layer the guitar sounds, but to make sure there was always depth in the sound: different tones, guitar/amp combinations and subtly different playing techniques. Once I started panning them in a stereo format (hard L, hard R) these different takes and sounds really started to blend well and have a very rich sound in the mix.

The drum programming is also totally re-vamped. Instead of just using a simple, 4-on-the-floor type drum machine beat and sound, Johnny is using multiple drum kits (both electronic and acoustic) and more technically complicated patterns. We layered the drums using the same process as the guitars: different drum kits with different sounds, all in a wide stereo spread. It was a lot of hard work and certainly MUCH more effort in pre-production…but it’s going to be worth it once the final mixes come back from mastering. If you’re reading this any you either have a copy of AIZ and/or were a fan of VC in any way, I feel very confident in saying that the new album will blow your mind. It’s a huge step forward in the approach, and Johnny took a huge step forward as a songwriter and a musician. He should be very, very proud.

Inevitably, after all the tracking is done, you end up getting somewhat attached to the production gear. Doing things like track cleanup are insanely tedious, but have to be done. The pre-mixing work of balancing levels and frequencies is boring and makes my eyes bleed, but it has to be done. This is where, as the title to this blog suggests, I start to feel like I’m “part of the machine”. In this sense I’m tied to the hardware and my laptop. It’s all part of the job I guess…

I’m not sure this blog entry really has any point, except to give me a forum to talk about stuff that I find interesting, and to hopefully give a bit of insight into the new VC album.

If you want to check out the debut Virus Cycle album, go to www.bluntfacerecords.com or www.viruscycle.com  

I’ll post updates and stuff as we move along. Cheers! 

Otto Kinzel