On the Record: Phosphorescent “Here’s To Taking It Easy”

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN: Matthew Houck aka Phosphorescent played Union Pool Tuesday night, performing the twangy full-band folk-rock of his new record, Here’s To Taking It Easy. It was the day of the album’s release, on Dead Oceans, and the room filled up right quick to see the Brooklyn-based band.

"Here's To Taking it Easy"

Billed as “the new Cosmic American Music,” Phospherscent’s sound on Here’s To Taking It Easy blends the intimate folksong of his earlier album, Pride, with the country bar-band of his ’09 Willie Nelson tribute album, To Willie.

Producer/engineer/musician Alex Lipsen (The Jealous Girlfriends, The Sharp Things) recorded basic tracks for the record at Headgear Recording in Williamsburg last summer and Houck took the tracks with him to “Phos Caverns” for overdubbing and mixing.

“There was no sit-down discussion about it, but, as an engineer, I had Neil Young’s Harvest and Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes in mind,” says Lipsen of the recording sessions. “I wasn’t directly going for those sounds, but having those records in my mind, informed certain engineering choices I made.

“We sort of tracked live with blankets and baffles for separation.  Actually, that was something that Matthew (Houck) and I talked about for Here’s to Taking it Easy.  We wanted to capture the feeling of everyone in the room.  I don’t often do that for studio recordings.  The live freqControl.com session we did as a warm-up the day before tracking began really helped solidify the idea of tracking live.” [Click to watch these freqControl-exclusive live sessions]

Houck’s awesome live band (go see them!) consists of Scott Stapleton on piano, Jeff Bailey on bass, Chris Marine on drums, Jesse Anderson Ainslie on guitar and Ricky Ray Jackson on pedal steel. Lipsen, who’s a co-owner of Headgear, had worked with Phosphorescent’s band members on previous projects, most notably Ainslie’s Barghest and Stapleton’s Virgin Forest.

There’s definitely a loose, jam-session feel to the band’s sound, which gels perfectly with Houck’s relaxed drawly singing. Like Willie Nelson and Neil Young, Houck’s a weary soul and music is his salvation. You hear a lot of heart in those live sessions captured at Headgear.

Matthew Houck

“I knew he was going to take the tracks [with him after recording basics] and re-orient them and add to them,” says Lipsen.

“I was pleasantly surprised with how much of the tracking made it on to the record.  This is really the new way of doing records that I see a lot lately — bands tend to cut the basics at a larger studio to get a vibe, augment the recording at home (or in a project studio) with overdubs, and then mix in a studio.”

Offering a few more technical specifics, Lipsen adds, “I’m really happy that they kept a lot of Jessie’s lead guitar. I’m pretty sure I close miked Headgear’s Music Man with a Royer-121 and sent it through one of our Daking pres.  I’m a big fan of one mic on a guitar for this style of music. And, I don’t know if this is true, but a friend of mine told me that Neil Young used an [Electro-Voice] RE-20 as a drum overhead, so I definitely tried that. I’d never done that before on a session.”

Dallas, TX-based engineer Stuart Sikes is credited with “outside mixing assistance,” and it seems fitting he’d be involved in some capacity, for his Grammy-winning work on Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose. In both the upbeat hootenanny-starting “It’s Hard To Be Humble (When You’re From Alabama)” and the wisftul “We’ll Be Here Soon” or “The Mermaid Parade,” Phosphorescent’s Here’s To Taking It Easy recalls the Jack White-produced ragged country-rock band of Lynn’s Rose. And, with his own brand of woozy, freewheeling, slide guitar-heavy “indie-folk,” Houck’s storytelling is no less potent.

“Matthew is incredibly talented,” Lipsen notes. “He’s really an artist that has something unique that he’s going for and I feel like he is one of the few that can bring the sounds in his head to fruition.”

Check out Here’s To Taking It Easy and try to catch Phosphorescent live. They’re playing The Mercury Lounge tonight before heading off to Europe.

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