In 2020, we want to remind you—and ourselves—of the importance of taking a break. And what better way to do that than to take an old (or new) record off the shelf and spin a few tunes? We’re inviting folks from some Michigan record stores we love to talk about what they're listening to right now.
Jim Dwyer is the co-owner of Encore Records, which has served Michigan listeners for more than 60 years. We talked to him about his favorite records of the moment.
Artist: Bo Diddley | Album: Go Bo Diddley | Song: "You Don’t Love, You Don’t Care"
“A good example of how the room itself is part of the sound and also how in this era, this was recorded in 1959, a lot of these engineers were mixing live. The needles are right in the red, and if it goes a little too higher, it’s too hot. But they're mixing it live and you can feel the energy in the session,” Dwyer said.
Artist: Brian Eno | Album: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts | Song: "America Is Waiting"
“For listeners who don't know this, who aren’t already familiar with the recording, this is analog tape sampling. This is before digital sampling, And what they did is they recorded, Bern and Eno, recorded voices off of the radio, talk radio...And so what they did was took a razor blade and magnetic tape and cut up the tape to fit the music they were making."
Artist: Heliocentrics | Album: Infinity of Now| Song: "Light in the Dark"
“They’re an interesting British sort of jazz, funk, hip hop influenced combo. They’ve got a brand-new record on MadLibs label,” Dwyer said. “Distinctive studios have distinctive sounds. There’s a reason why the room itself is important.”
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