Jónsi Birgisson (Sigur Rós) Records “Go” With Peter Katis

BRIDGEPORT, CT: Producer/engineer Peter Katis has a gift for distilling a band’s sound, using instinct, technology and personal invention to help bring out the sonic temperament of a song in all its complexity. For example, The National, Interpol, The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit … all bands whose distinctly weighty sounds Katis helped to craft in the studio, meshing darkening tones with sublime choruses, harmonies both plaintive and ecstatic, and the sonic grit and sheen of every piece making up the whole.

Peter Katis and Jónsi Birgisson at Tarquin Studios. Bridgeport, CT.

Production/engineering highlights from Katis’ recent history include Tokyo Police Club’s Elephant Shell, Mates of State’s Re-Arrange Us, The Grates’ Teeth Lost Hearts Won, Julian Plenti’s Skyscraper, Fanfarlo’s Resevoir, The Swell Season’s Strict Joy and a new record by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson, due out on XL in March ’10.

An engineer and musician, Katis has tremendous chops in the studio and his studio has become an important character in the artistic process of bands that hole up there to work.

Located in the attic of a giant Victorian home in nondescript Bridgeport, CT, Tarquin Studios is filled with both the rare and requisite in musical instruments, amps, microphones, pedals and effects boxes, and Katis’ thoroughly vetted recording and mixing systems. Often distortion-infused yet never distracting from melody or musicality, the best Katis productions seem to so tastefully blend recorded sounds with studio manipulation and space that by some sonic association, they hit you like a mood or a season or a memory.

Needless to say, we were excited at the idea of Katis producing Birgisson’s new solo record, Go.

So how did you end up working with Jónsi Birgisson? How/why do you think he came to you?
He really liked the sound of the Fanfarlo record and was familiar with several other records I’ve done. It started out as a really modest project; it was just going to be an acoustic guitar and vocal kind of record, and now, it’s massive. And, it’s really ended up sounding quite different from Sigur Rós.

Was it just you and Birgisson recording at Tarquin?
Well, the first week it was just Jónsi and his partner Alex, who’s an up-and-coming engineer and has a lot of creative input, and Samuli [Kosminen], the drummer from múm. So, we spent that first week laying down acoustic guitar and drums, although I’d probably say it was more ‘crazy percussion’ than traditional drums.

Samuli is a very original drummer, from what he chooses to use for “drums” to his musical decisions and arrangements and all with almost inhuman precision. There is virtually no programming on this record.  When you hear it, you’ll find that hard to believe.

Was he actually playing a drum kit though?
He was playing an assortment of drums, but never just a drum kit. One of the best sounds on one of the songs is the sound of him stomping on a suitcase and it was very hard to play because the action was so slow it was always awkwardly behind the beat. Because of these percussion sounds, right off the bat the record had a sort of unusual feel. And then Nico Muhly came in, and he’s really amazing. The amount of work he was scheduled to do in the time we had was completely unrealistic. And yet we finished it ahead of schedule. He was insanely fast.

So were these just string arrangements? Or more elaborate orchestrations?
It was strings, woodwinds and brass. He had everything written out — a giant stack of charts. The first day he came in, it was a 6-person string ensemble. We did a day and a half with them to do 12 songs. He and the players were extremely efficient.

Were these his people he works with regularly?
Yes, this is his crew and they’re pretty much the people in that classical/rock crossover world. A bunch of them played in the Dessner brothers recent show at BAM, The Long Count. So there was a day of strings —violins, violas, cellos, then there was a day of four woodwinds and then a four-person brass section and an afternoon for double bass. And then, a day of just flute. There’s flute all over this record.

So, this was all done at Tarquin?
Yes! At first, there was a possibility the orchestral dates would happen in NYC, but Jónsi from the start was all about it being really homespun and doing it all here. It worked out great, and I think all the players enjoyed working somewhere a little different.

Jónsi at Tarquin

I would imagine from what I’ve read about Sigur Rós — recording in their own studio which they built in an indoor swimming pool — that Jónsi might be especially experimental and critical of sounds and tones. Was this the case?
Actually, part of the reason he was so good to work with was that he was just like ‘do whatever you can to make it really interesting.’ And so I’d suggest using a lot of distortion, for example. And he’d love it. The stranger and more messed up I made it, the more he loved it. And for vocals, he was definitely mindful of things not being too slick or too polished.

This record has more of a rock feel than some Sigur Rós music. It’s Jónsi Birgisson singing so it’s going to sound a bit like Sigur Rós, the same way that Julian Plenti’s going to sound a bit like Interpol. But, in the same way, that record doesn’t sound like Interpol to me. It’s very different, and this doesn’t sound like Sigur Rós.

For a taste of this luminous, goose-bump-inducing orchestral pop record, click to hear “Boy Lilikoi” http://www.beggarspromo.com/xl/jonsi/jonsi_boy_lilikoi.mp3

How would you describe the sound?
Well, it’s a combination of all that weird percussion, those giant Nico Muhly arrangements, a lot of acoustic guitar and then us just sprinkling in different elements here and there — keyboards and what not. Besides a few little keyboard parts, there are basically no electric instruments on the record, it’s all acoustic. But by the end there was a good deal of manipulation, where we’d take the “live” tracks and overdrive and filter and reverse and really mess with them, loop a part here and there, etc.  And, that was the only issue, where we’d debate things somewhat.

I didn’t want to make the record too blippy because I thought it might diminish the ultra-organic quality of what we’d started with.  But I think it ended up being a pretty exciting and original combination of sounds and styles.

But it had started out as this intimate acoustic record, so was it Nico’s involvement that took it to this much bigger place and got everyone thinking bigger?
I believe so, yes. Samuli played a hand in that as well.  He’s such a great percussionist, and at times he would really kind of rock out. And even when he wouldn’t “rock out,” part of the adventure and fun of it was that I tried to record his percussion in strange ways most of the time.
Instead of miking everything, I would just use a stereo pair of mics. And I would use two different kinds of mics in the pair, different pre-amps, different compressors, and I would overdrive almost everything. And sometimes that’s apparent and other times it’s not. When you hear it, you wonder why it sounds so crazy, and it’s because that stuff is just so gained up. And it makes it super-stereo!

When you do that, all of a sudden, this modest part sounds very exciting. So, these percussion tracks have a lot of aggression.  And they’re a big part of what helps the record morph back and forth between moments that are heartbreakingly still and sad to passages that sound like a train hurdling off of a cliff…

For more information on Tarquin, visit http://www.tarquinrecords.com/studio/ and contact Peter Katis through his management at http://www.worldsend.com.

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