[photo courtesy of Matt Bologna]

It has not been since our very first Bjorkestra experience at the late great Tonic club, that we’ve experienced this orchestra in a real jazz club. Monday night at Jazz Standard, Travis Sullivan and his superb band of musicians celebrated the release of their new CD Enjoy on Koch Records. We were invited to attend and record the late show. Bjorkestra delivered a stunning display of both orchestral interplay and individual improvisation within the structure of Travis’ unique arrangements of Bjork’s material.

Our close proximity to the stage gave us a special view of the interplay between the musicians and the pleasure that each player seemed to derive from the performance. Our recording reflects some of that joy, as the humor and banter is evident. Our belief in the strength of the performance we had just experienced was confirmed when Travis remarked to us after the show about the power of the set.

This is an outstanding clear recording, as our position gave us a direct line to the band. Much of the amplification of sound on the recording is directly from the instruments themselves. We mixed in a small amount of vocals from the soundboard feed to compensate for the volume of the instruments on stage. Minor quibbles exist for the clinking and clanking of food plates in this dinner club, and some balancing that was necessary in the first minute of the recording. Otherwise, its a tremendous listen. Enjoy, indeed!

There are three older Bjorkestra recordings archived on nyctaper (here) (here) and (here).

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra
2008-02-25
Late Show
Jazz Standard
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Audience/Soundboard Matrix

Soundboard + Upfront Neumann KM-150s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (set fades, downsample) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Many thanks to Travis for permission to record.

Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper
2008-02-26

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:09:22]
01 Joga
02 Army of Me
03 Cocoon
04 Pluto
05 All is Full of Love
06 [band introductions/banter]
07 Human Behavior
08 Its Oh So Quiet

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra, visit their website, and purchase Enjoy directly from Bjorkestra or the Koch label.

For our California readers, Bjorkestra will be on tour in the following places next month:

Date City Venue
Wed 03/05/08 Santa Cruz, CA Moe’s Alley
Thu 03/06/08 San Francisco, CA Yerba Buena Center For The Arts
Fri 03/07/08 Sacramento, CA Harlow’s Night Club
Sun 03/09/08 Los Angeles, CA Safari Sam’s
Tue 03/11/08 Santa Barbara, CA Soho Restaurant & Music Club
Wed 03/12/08 San Diego, CA Anthology

[photo courtesy of Jason Bergman Photography]

There has been so much written about Justin Vernon’s outstanding Bon Iver project and the story behind For Emma, Forever Ago, that I have no intent to repeat. Last night, Justin provided a live glimpse into what makes these basic songs so compelling — his ability to capture the simple aspects of life with poignant humor and charm, and present it within a basic band structure.

This week, Emma was released on the Jagjaguwar label, and one would expect the beginning of the blogger backlash. This might be the fate of an artist whose hype exceeds the talent, but Bon Iver heartily deserves the last six months of praise. If a live performance is the ultimate expression of a musician’s artistic value, then Glasslands was the proof positive that Justin is the real deal. He handled the huge crowd, some technical problems, and the weight of expectations with grace and fortitude.

At nyctaper, we consider ourselves quite fortunate to see live performances of such quality. We are doubled blessed when the artist and the management afford us authorization and guest list access. Bon Iver gave us all three, and we offer much thanks for this courtesy, and as well we thank the staff of Glasslands.

We placed our microphones in the same location as our last Glasslands recordings (Avey Tare/Deakin/Kria [here] and Rings [here]), and in order to avoid the persistent crowd chatter and bar noise, we brought along hyper uni-directional microphones. We were also given access to the main mix of the soundboard to capture a “matrix” recording. Unfortunately, we didn’t trust our room equipment enough, and relied a bit too heavily on the board mix. As a result, the mix is not properly balanced, and there is quite a bit more kick-drum in the mix particularly during louder moments. We do believe this is still an excellent recording, but offer it to our readers with the knowledge that should have done better. Enjoy!

Black Mountain was also recorded and will be offered in the coming days.

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Bon Iver
2008-02-23
Glasslands Gallery
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard/Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Front of Board Neumann KM-150s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (set fades, downsample) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-02-24

Setlist:
[total time 37:33]
01 [introduction]
02 Flume
03 Lump Sum
04 [banter]
05 The Wolves (Act I and II)
06 Blindsided
07 For Emma

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Bon Iver, visit his myspace page, and purchase Emma directly from the label.

[photo credit]

Calvin Johnson made a rare but very welcome NYC appearance on Sunday afternoon at the intimate Bowery Poetry Club. At a venue of this nature, Calvin’s sublime personality and dry humor were on intimate display and his songwriting gifts were evident. At the merch table before and after the show he greeted and charmed all comers, and offered a full array of his eclectic catalog. The one-hour performance contained highlights from his solo records, several new numbers, and one Beat Happening song.

The attempt to capture a recording of this event proved extremely difficult. We set up about 30 feet from the stage which was a mistake — we needed to be much closer.  Calvin performed with one microphone in the middle of the stage, and his frequent movements created fluctuations in volume.  Additionally, the quiet of the music was often interrupted by loud sounds from the bar, the audience, and a loud rotating fan. Fortunately, the fan was shut off at Calvin’s request twelve minutes into the show.

As a result, the raw audience recording of this concert was nearly unlistenable. We were extremely fortunate to have met with punkcast.com after the show, and arranged to combine punkcast’s mono soundboard feed with our audience recording. After many hours with the files in Soundforge, we mixed the audience and soundboard sources and edited many of the flaws of the recording. Ultimately, what is offered here is far from perfect, but is a significant improvement from the initial recording. We offer many thanks to punkcast for his generosity, and of course many thanks to Calvin and Chad from dubnarcotic.org for permission to record.

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Calvin Johnson
2008-02-17
Bowery Poetry Club
New York, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard > mono feed > MD + Front of Board Audience Master (30 Feet from Stage)
DPA 4021s (6 ft Stand) > Apogee Mini-Me > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav files
Matrix Mix:
Soundforge (resample, level adjustments, sync + mix audio sources) > 16bit 44.1kHz wav file > CDWave > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Soundboard Recorded by punkcast
punkcast.com
Audience Recorded by nyctaper
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[total time 1:02:05]
01 When You Are Mine
02 Moaning
03 [banter]
04 Rabbit Blood
05 Hurrying on to Something
06 Sitting Alone At The Movies
07 I’m Down
08 Your Eyes
09 Can I Ask You Something
10 Drive Me Good and Crazy
11 [banter]
12 Apple to the Core
13 Ride With Me
14 [banter]
15 Wrap Me in Cotton

If you email nyctaper to download this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT this outstanding artist and visit Calvin’s website, visit the amazing K Records site, and purchase Calvin Johnson’s official releases (here).