Are there keyboards on loveless

It was nerdy as much as just us enjoying doing it to the point where if you actually listen to the original record and ours, we copied the original arrangement to the point where every bass-drum hit is exactly the same. We just started to map it out; it was a bit of a joke on the title "Map Ref. The basic structure of the song is the same. With the guitars and the singing, it started to change, but not much, because we were paying tribute to them.

There's one bit in the middle of the song where there's a spoken-word section, and we didn't want to do that, so we wrote a melody instead, which Bilinda sang.

But other than that, it's a virtual reproduction of the original song. I saw an interview you did with Ian Svenonius on the Soft Focus program where you mentioned that your sound was more dry and up front, like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Part of the thing that really attracted me to a lot of the American groups was a real sense of it being bands playing and capturing it purely on tape. There was rawness to it and up-frontness to it. British groups, in general, have a tendency to use more effects, be more studio-bound.

Of course, ironically, me imitating the American sound, it was assumed that my music was studio-bound, when, in fact, I was consciously avoiding doing all of that. I like the Cocteau Twins, though. Fundamentally, the huge irony with the bands called "shoegazing" was that a lot of those bands really were into the Cocteau Twins. And they all used choruses, flangers and other effects pedals to create a certain kind of sound. Three pedals I refused to use in that era were chorus, flanger and delay.

Everything we did was everything but that. Pretty much, the only thing I used was reverse reverb. The reason I loved it was because it allowed you to be expressive. If I play softer or harder, it's super-affected by how you play. Things like chorus and flanger and things like that are put on top of what you're playing; it's hard to interact with it.

At the time, I hated it, and when all the bands that came out then were compared to us, I thought it was kind of a joke. Pretty much most of the things liked about us was what I hated. People would go, "Oh, that's the band that plays with effects," and "They're a studio band" and so on.

I hated all of that, actually. But that's the way it goes. But probably I should. I don't think I'm creative enough, to be honest. Because being creative involves creating, and I don't create enough. I get a genuine pleasure out of songwriting, but I only do it when I feel like it. I can go through quite long periods where I won't do anything — this pattern where I won't do anything for several months, and then for a month or two every night, it's all I'll do.

Just play guitar and sing. Make tunes. Join the Westword community and help support independent local journalism in Denver. Moulder was brought in to mix the Glider EP released April and stayed on for more sessions for Loveless.

He was extremely positive and motivated and very knowledgeable and also very respectful of the fact that I knew what I wanted. He would always build tents around everything.

Every guitar sound that was recorded always had huge blankets around [the amps] and everything we could to sort of dry it up and make it as upfront as possible. The reason for that was because of all the sounds I was using. When you use the tremolo arm, it adds a reverb in itself.

It adds a sort of space and when you start having room ambience, then it gets weird. This became a big issue at the time. But Alan was just really good. He was the first person I came across I could really trust. So we made a big library of that. If we made a keyboard line, it would be kind of made with these guitar feedback things, then I would also mix a flute sample in there sometimes.

They were my main things if I was using keyboard sounds. Shield confirms that this is in fact true, while explaining his thinking. Anjali Dutt was recording us without hearing it. Just monitoring by seeing the meters. More unusual still, no compression, reverb or delay whatsoever was used. The top end and all the consonants and the clarity would come from that. Then behind that is this kind of bed of around 10 or more.

It just sounds like an odd sound, and the sound is created by the fading of the 10 tracks, but they all sound very similar. Once we learned the song, we would sing it very similar each time. It would be markedly the same. Basically I used them and NS10s and then the Boxers. It was a good setup actually. So while I record loud, and monitor loud at various times, most of the time when I was mixing, it would be sort of around that 84dB area.

I could do a trick after a while. I kind of panned them, that one was quite stereo. During the mix process, Shields would often experiment with varispeeding the two track tape machines. I just let the music dictate the pitch it would be and then the vocal just became this varisped vocal.

Other important features for Shields on Loveless were the transitions between tracks, meaning that he effectively mastered the album at The Church, as he put together the segues in an AMS Audiofile digital audio editor. Terrible convertors and all that, but it had a sound. All of the crossfades were just Crossfade and you just picked one. With many of the drums and rhythm guitar tracks already recorded by early , Shields began to concoct bass parts to accompany his wall of guitars.

The Steinberger was run through a vintage Ampeg SVT amp with a Neumann U87 mic positioned approximately three inches away from the amplifier to eliminate any noise spill. Finally, to give the Steinberger some added crunch, Shields used a Vox Tone Bender on nearly all songs.

This vintage distortion pedal provided the chugging basslines with a much-needed weight and allowed the bass guitar to compete with the mammoth walls of guitars on tracks such as When You Sleep and Sometimes. Lurking just underneath the surface of crunchy guitars, driving bass and cut-up beats are a slew of eclectic feedback samples scattered all throughout the album.

The extensive sampling began during the recording of To Here Knows When whereby Shields would record guitar feedback from his Jazzmaster to DAT tape and sample the guitar feedback through an Akai S, which could then be triggered from a keyboard to create a melody. It gave the song this bubbling little tone underneath. Many of the songs on Loveless end with a small interlude of distorted and manipulated guitar feedback — these warped yet comforting samples act as lucid bridges that tie together the eleven dream-like compositions.

Always one for defying sonic conventions, Shields recorded the backing vocals for the album without laying down any guide tracks for the lead vocals.