Tape Op Magazine - Issue #146

Interviews

Interviews

Interviews

Interviews

Interviews

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AUGUST 21, 2025 INTERVIEWS

Chad Clark: Casting a Spell with Beauty Pill

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI, GEOFF STANFIELD, CAMERON WHITMAN

I stumbled across Beauty Pill on Bandcamp while poking around the internet looking for new music. There were a few tracks posted from a forthcoming soundtrack to a play called suicide.chat.room. It was a refreshing break from most of what I had come across that day, and it caught my attention. It was an interesting combination of electronic and acoustic sources, soundscapes, and songs that really captured the emotional space of loneliness and introspection. I went down the rabbit hole, as they say, watching what videos I could find and listening to their available catalog. Their album Describes Things as They Are – recorded while being exhibited in a museum – found itself in frequent rotation (see the online article at <tapeop.com>). I loved the songs, the sounds, and the weirdness of it all. The band's leader and songwriter, Chad Clark [Tape Op #36], and I got in touch. Check out the recent LP, Please Advise and the Instant Night EP that was just released.

AUGUST 21, 2025 INTERVIEWS

Danny Reisch: Keep Your Hands on Those Faders!

BY JONATHAN MEIBURG, LETITIA SMITH

For over 15 years, drummer/producer/engineer Danny Reisch's analog-centric studio Good Danny's has been a hub of Austin, Texas' thriving music scene. Danny cut his teeth making records with bands such as White Denim, Other Lives, Heartless Bastards, Pure X, The Octopus Project, David Ramirez, and The Bright Light Social Hour. Additionally, from 2011 to 2016 he also engineered and mixed more than 300 unusually crisp and vibrant live sessions for the pioneering music blog Daytrotter, recording everyone from Lizzo to HAIM to Jimmy Cliff. In recent years, he's expanded his studio and branched out into mixing film scores in surround – including projects for A24, Disney, and Apple – but he's also still recording and mixing bands, as well as playing drums for Other Lives. Meanwhile, he continues to find creative ways to use tape machines in a digital world. Full disclosure: Danny produced and engineered three albums for my band, Shearwater, but this isn't just logrolling. He's a joy to work with; I've always admired his meticulous, energetic approach, his dedication, and his sense of adventure.

AUGUST 21, 2025 INTERVIEWS

Mark Linett: Surfing the Sessions

BY LARRY CRANE

We first interviewed Mark Linett in Tape Op #47 about his work with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Since then he's overseen an extensive amount of The Beach Boys' archives, and with the recent release of Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969–1971, I dropped Mark a line to see how projects such as these get done. We also got the chance to talk about his mobile recording work. Check out this interview on the Tape Op Podcast as well!

AUGUST 21, 2025 INTERVIEWS

Stan Shaff: San Francisco’s Immersive Sound at Audium

BY IAN BRENNAN

Stan Shaff's fascination with the use of sound movement as a compositional tool grew out of his roots as a jazz trumpet player. In 1960, he began staging the first of his live "sound sculptures" throughout the Bay Area. By 1965 he had created Audium, the first – and still only permanent – theater for sound movement, in San Francisco. Audium has grown to include an installation of 176 speakers. Today, Stan's work is being continued on in partnership with his son, Dave, who is also a trumpet player. In Stan's own words, "I have always been possessed by the evocative qualities all sounds seem to have, whether natural or electronic. Sounds touch deeper levels of our inner life, layers that lie just beneath the visual world." It should be noted that Stan's work pre-dated, by almost 20 years, the debut of Dolby's revolutionary "split surround" stereo for cinema in 1978 (tested during the release of Superman, then formally introduced the following year with Apocalypse Now). Audium continues to stage performances every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, year 'round, to sellout audiences.

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