Cooking with Kevin Galland
When looking for new music, I have a lot of different methods - going through concert venue listings, festival line-ups, bands on record labels, getting recommendations - and most of my listening at the beginning is mainly done via Bandcamp. I am always intrigued by the credits of the albums, especially since there are not many details about bands and their music online (sometimes only a few articles or an old event page). One name that I saw appear often in the production credits, especially for music being released on Humus Records, was Kevin Galland.
Having enjoyed his music production across many different EPs and albums across different genres and with a range of bands, I got in contact with Kevin to see if he had a definitive list of music he had worked on and to know about his musical and personal journey. Next to producing, he is also the bassist and synth player in Coilguns, the co-owner of Studio Mécanique in La Chaux-de-Fonds and released his first album, From The Mountains To The Sea last year.
For Reverb Dream, Kevin tells us about his background in the music scene and picks four albums, which he has produced, and explains the recipes for each one of them.
Flying in the background - Coilguns / Bad Bonn / 12.09 - photo copyright: Patrick Principe
In his own words
I was born in Switzerland from parents that are both Swiss but not really (mum is Irish-English from a Scottish family, that’s an entire story in one sentence. Dad is from a Geneva family that moved to South America, was born there and moved back to Switzerland). I grew up in France but not really, always having a foot in Geneva which is in Switzerland but not really. I finished becoming an adult but not really while living in Norway. And all those “but not really” combined made me feel pretty early on that none of this made any sense. It definitely affected who I am and how I view everything, but it’s hard to say how exactly it impacted my work with music. I guess it fuelled the confusion/absurdity that I need music and art to help me sort out?
In any case I started playing music when I was 8, first the clarinet and then classical percussions. That led me to playing drums when I was a pre-teen because I wanted to play the music I was listening to at the time (Muse, mostly). I formed punk rock bands with friends when I was a teenager, and started playing the guitar to be able to participate with songwriting.
That's also when home studio gear was beginning to be affordable, and it seemed that every band on earth had a member that got interested in that to save money on recording. For some reason in my bands that was me.
Coilguns hired me when Donatien quit, they asked if I would play synth for them. I really liked that band and these guys and it happened at a time when I severely started to miss playing music so I was super happy to accept even though I had never touched a synth before. But as a listener I felt their songs sometimes deserved an actual bass, and told them that. They answered “cool, can you play bass?”. The answer was no, so I got a bass. But I think that's what's exciting for me when it comes to learning how to play an instrument: to have a specific goal in mind. I never "practiced" any of these instruments, I just play songs and if I can't I find fun ways to get to where I need to be.
(The first album from Kevin Galland's solo project, From The Mountains To The Sea (link to album on Bandcamp))
Same with my solo project, I play a bunch of instruments there, some of them I had never touched before I wrote lyrics that called for a song that called for that specific part on that specific instrument. And if I can't play that part I mess around on the instrument until it gets passable. Lately I got a banjo and exactly that happened : I played it for 10 minutes and thought "cool, one day I'll use it", then a song I was working on needed banjo so I had to figure out how chord fingering works on this strange guitar.
I don't consider myself good at any of these instruments, but I don't need to. It keeps everything fun and it helps with having the feeling that I'm finding out things, rather than following a recipe.
Because following recipes can be so boring. Sure, it gives you a frame and a general idea. But if your taste buds scream for 10 times the amount of garlic, then go for it.
Same with audio engineering, I was self taught for 10+ years before I decided to do that for a living. Then I got educated and worked as an assistant in a studio (Studio Mécanique, that I now co-own). But the entire way I tried my best to not follow recipes, and to have as much fun as possible. I've been doing that full time for almost 10 years now.
Now with more than 200 albums that I've worked on (that's a rough estimate, I could be way off with that number), there's definitely a kind of home made recipe that came out, but I try my best to question it as much as possible to fit the needs of people who hire me.
Emilie Zoé - hello future me (link to album on Bandcamp)
For this album that I co-engineered and mixed/mastered, it was very interesting because it was the first time I was sharing the kitchen that much. Louis Jucker co engineered it with me, and Elie was very much involved in how everything was supposed to sound. And both of them were the producers of that album. Basically they told me what it should taste like and I used my knowledge to suggest spices, seasonings and sometimes ingredients. It was very collaborative and I can't remember any moment when the kitchen felt too crowded.
Most of the records I work on are on a very tight budget so I have to make things work now and fast. Which is cool, but sometimes you'd like to spend a bit more time on trying out things, which is what happened on this record. Pretty much every song has a different drum setup for example and that's super fun to explore based on the needs of the song.
(cover by Mola Clay)
Soubateurs - OK then (link to album on Bandcamp)
For this one it was the first time that the band that hired me booked a super fancy studio abroad. We went to black box, a really nice place in Brittany with top tier gear, great sounding rooms and very friendly dogs. So basically this one had me work in a kitchen that I don't know at all, with ingredients I've never tasted, but where all the knives are exactly where you want them and all the veggies are organic and super fresh. And a chili is a chili, so you know what it'll do to the dish. You give it a try before putting it in, and it might give you different ideas that you didn't expect and the whole thing takes an unexpected turn. Also, 14-17 hour days and a fuckton of coffee. I guess that's how the last song on this album ended up sounding the way it does. During a break I heard the drummer play while I was outside of the studio with the door open and I loved how it sounded and wanted to get that sound for that one song. But also we all agreed it was a song that should be played at night. Only we did not expect that many crickets! But as soon as I opened the outside mic and heard the perfect drum sound for this song with the added bonus of crickets singing to it, we knew we were onto something. So they all had crickets in their headphones and played with them, and it became a part of the record.
Beurre - oxt to anyone (link to album on Bandcamp)
This was my friend Chadi asking me for a meal that on paper should not have worked at all. Umami honey with dark chocolate and salt and garlic, deep fried in butter then toasted at 500 degrees then thrown in your face. Or something like that. I could have tried to talk him out of doing it that way, explained that maybe we don't need the chocolate, or the butter. But the band name means Butter, so I knew I better trust them and go for it and add some mango chutney and chili paste after the toasting. What I'm trying to say is that this one is definitely not for everyone, but I hope it makes it more unique. Every time I hear it I start by laughing at how extreme and over-the-top everything is. Sometimes it's exactly what I need and sometimes I can't handle 5 seconds of it.
Also it's a good example of something that became obvious in the past 7-8 years. With almost no exception I only listen to bands that I know personally, or at least that I've read as many interviews of as possible. I need to understand why they do what they do the way they do it to really enjoy it on a deeper level, and if I know why they put 1kg of sugar on that pancake, or if there's no salt whatsoever with that steak then I can eat it without thinking "this is strange".
NevBorn - Alkaios · Part I · The Eagle (link to album on Bandcamp)
This is a great example of a lesson that I really enjoyed learning. Prog-metal with super long songs is something that I don't consider my cup of tea, in theory. And my knowledge of the genre is very limited, I don't know the codes, I don't know if you're supposed to micro-wave or air-fry. It's a cuisine that I don't *think* I like. But I had to cook it, so I went out and tried a bunch of different restaurants of the genre. I found elements I could enjoy in all of them, and it inspired me to cook NevBorn the way I did. I'm very pleased with the result, it sounds huge and I think it serves what they wrote. They also had a clear idea of what it should be like, so whenever I felt stuck they had eye-opening mix notes.
I think above all, with the unavoidable repetitions that this line of work has, I need to have fun and I need to imagine myself crafting something concrete. Today I used food because I was hungry when I wrote this, but usually I like the image of building wooden furniture. Otherwise it becomes way too absurd to turn digital/virtual knobs while the analog ones they're based on gather dust, alone in a small room staring at a computer screen for hours day in and day out, sometimes spending days without speaking a word out loud. I need to be happy about the result, I need to make whoever hired me happy. I can't worry about anything else (and definitely nothing that has to do with the business side of things that I can’t seem to understand - and what I do understand I really don’t feel comfortable with), and silly metaphors like cooking or building chairs help me a lot in staying grounded.
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