Berlin’s wall of sound

Sunday, Jan 21, 2007  |  Stephen Cooke, The ChronicleHerald

Los Lobos member and adventurous producer adds weird to Wiley

By STEPHEN COOKE Entertainment Reporter

IT’S A CASE of high tech meets low tech at Halifax’s Sonic Temple recording studio.

P.E.I. singer-songwriter Nathan Wiley sits back and cocks his head to one side, listening as producer Steve Berlin sends his recorded vocal through a 40-year-old Ace Tone tape loop echo chamber hooked up to the digital mixing board.

The result adds analog warmth and grit to the Summerside singer’s voice, which on his previous two CDs, Bottom Dollar and High Low, has had a hushed and dreamy quality. But the Ace Tone adds layers that suggest something darker.

For Wiley, it’s just the kind of sound he was thinking of when the new songs started to gestate.

"It’s definitely different," he says of the material for the new record, possibly due in late spring after mixing in Vancouver.

"It’s exciting for me. I just wrote some weirder stuff, and it was nice when Steve came up with his list of what he liked. The weirder ones were on there."

Berlin is no stranger to dark and weird. From his early days in the L.A. punk scene through his ongoing career as sax player for acclaimed Latino band Los Lobos and the cinematic sound of the instrumental combo Tuatara, Berlin has been involved in music grounded in integrity, but with an eye on the edge.

And as a producer, he’s helmed projects by iconoclastic groups ranging from Faith No More to the Tragically Hip, and singer-songwriters like Rickie Lee Jones, John Wesley Harding and Michelle Shocked.

Clearly, Wiley is in good hands.

"It was a really unique songwriter’s sensibility," says Berlin of his first reaction to Wiley’s demos, "and I heard a lot of possibilities, most of which we’ve been able to explore. I heard a bit of dub in some of the stuff, and we kind of went after that a little bit.

"But they were wide open. As I would get the songs that he posted online, I had an idea for a really different kind of record. And I think it’s actually turning out to be all that and more. A lot of people I work with tend to have a really defined palette by the time I get to work with them. People seem to find a groove they’re happy in and stay there, but I like to go exploring. Right from the first, Nathan and I both had this idea that we would just go exploring and anything was fair game."

The Wiley/Berlin connection came about via the singer’s manager Louis Thomas, who’d previously tapped the Portland-based producer for Great Big Sea’s album Turn. Berlin expressed interest in Wiley after hearing his first two CDs, prompting a creative spurt that led to them having over 40 songs to choose from.

"I just kept writing," says Wylie of his hot streak. "And then I started making lists of which songs might fit together.

"I didn’t start out with a real plan, one way or another. I just wanted to see what happens. This is my first time working with a producer too, and I wanted to see what that would bring to the process."

"Besides misery," chuckles Berlin.

Berlin visited Halifax previously in 1999, when Los Lobos appeared at the Great Big Picnic on Citadel Hill, but this is his first extended stay here. Despite the pressures involved in recording over a short period of time, he enjoys the warm vibe of Sonic Temple, housed in an 1820 heritage building on Hollis Street, and being in a vibrant downtown area instead of someone’s basement home studio or some cold industrial park.

"And the musical talent here is amazing," says the goateed producer, impressed with the likes of drummer Geoff Arsenault and bassist Brian Bourne, who play on the sessions.

The one drawback is time.

"It was kind of alarming at first to realize what a small window we had to start from scratch and come up with a record," says Wiley. "The thing that worried me was that there wouldn’t be time to experiment a bit, but there has been. I’m pretty happy with what we’ve done."

"Yeah, somewhere along the line we managed to get completely stupid," grins Berlin.

"Anything we could think of we’d try," agrees Wiley. "If it didn’t work, we wouldn’t keep it. At the end of the day the songs would still be the same, just with more clothes on them. Maybe they’d get weirder."

"We did get weirder on some, but I honestly loved the sound of Nathan’s demos," says Berlin. "The first thing I said when we started was that I wanted to follow where they were leading. I wanted to use these textures and these ideas wherever we could."

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