Get Carried Away By Carlson’s Debut Album Never Easy Never Been Easier
The Brooklyn sound engineer and producer, having worked with Autre Ne Veut and Tim Hecker, opens up his own world.
Al Carlson is mostly a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. Having collaborated as a sound engineer, producer and multi-intrumentalist with Autre Ne Veut, Tim Hecker and Ariel Pink, he's got plenty of studio time under his belt: but it was while he was miles outside of the studio, on a surf trip in Nicaragua, that he conceived of his own debut project Never Easy Never Been Easier. The psychedelic, free-roaming electronic release is formed of one 40 minute continuous mix, which you can get swept up by below.
"With this set I microscopically focused on every sonic element from the ground up," Carlson (his recording name) told The FADER. "I made beats with the smallest shards of rhythmic high-end and low-end. I created pads and bass sounds using very basic and pure additive/subtractive synthesis. I used samples but filtered them into the smallest frequency zones and cut them into small micro-pieces. Conversely, big picture wise, I wanted to focus on the clarity of the ideas using a slow development of melodies and themes. I made this LP as a continuous look at contrast; both instant, in the moment, but also over the course of 40 minutes."
Never Easy Never Been Easier is out now on Driftless Recordings.