#reddie week 2021

[argyleheir]

One more tag game!

Tagged by @complicitsacrilege - thanks!

Current time: 3:55 PM

Current mood: relaxed

Current activity: making pizza dough

Currently thinking about: vacation 😍 will have limited internet next week, which I enjoy

Current favorite song: many; here’s a pretty one

Currently reading: have so been enjoying the recent flurry of Charioteer love that I’ve resolved to do a full reread. This book is dear to my heart - and while it’s one I’ve often reread certain scenes, I think I’ve only given it the cover-to-cover treatment three times. The last was in 2021 (‘53 edition)… I feel I’m in need of a refresher to fully appreciate and participate in the discourse (and write fic)

Currently watching: seeking enthusiastic recs 👀

Current favorite character: Jonathan Harker

Current WIPs: mostly Dracula (90s AU, drabble set), still hoping to finish my Reddie longfic for the WIP Big Bang

Tagging a few I didn’t catch on the last game @grimgrinningghosts456, @ellewidogast, @jackie-the-obscure, @livesonthebside and anyone else who wants to play 🖤

[im-getting-help]

Let me tell youuu! It not only haunted me, I think it saved my fcking life.

In 2020 I came back to fandom spaces thanks to the It movies.

It all started in twitter. I was lurking, looking for memes and I found one of those screenshot fics accounts and began reading Turtle Creek. (that format was insane! i kinda of miss it tho).

I eventually ended up in ao3. The same person who was making some of the twitter accounts wrote some fics there.

I kept going through twitter cause, again, that format of screenshot stories was addictive and I found a very interesting fic.

This screenshot fic was a short story that was all text messages until the last chapter. In this, Eddie text a wrong number and it turns out to be Richie, but obviously they don't know, but they keep texting and im not going to spoil cause when I tell you this one is GOOD im not joking.

That fic becames one of my absolute favourites even after finishing the story, I absolutely love it.

After covid (around 2021) I say goodbye to It and go back to normal boring life.

You see, for the longest time I lived like a closeted fan. Im not sure what made me so reluctant to be active in fandom but I just couldn't. I didn't want to be a fan and I was afraid to interact with communities. I didn't like or shared or comment, I was like a ghost, I read and I left. My close friends knew what I liked and once in a while I talked about how much I loved the It movies, but specifically online I didn't want anything to do with fandom, so when covid stopped I thought the logical thing to do was to just, go back to living "normal life".

I started uni and time passed. Then, around march of 2023 I was looking for something in the IG stories archive and find a story I made with a Pennywise filter and thought "aw! the It fandom, nice ❤".

A week later I can't stop thinking about It. Im in class and I remember a meme i've seen in twitter 3 years ago and I can't stop laughing. I find an old drive file filled with It memes I download in 2020. I go to twitter to see if I can find Turtle Creek and it's gone. I don't remember any of the user names of the people who wrote those other screenshot fics. I never followed anyone, I never interacted with anyone, I don't remember fics names or accounts, I only have some memes and art, some from artists that they don't even have accounts anymore.

The thing is, I was entering depression again at that time. Just like in 2020, the It fandom was holding my hand and telling me "hey, here is something lovely for you to enjoy today, life isn't horrible!" so, I relented. I came back to tumblr, I opened an account on ao3 and started looking for new fics, cause for some reason I thought all the fics I read on twitter were lost forever (so dramatic lol).

Months passed and istg if it wasn't for It fics im sure I would've dropped out of uni. I was so fcking depressed, the only thing that motivated me was reading a new one shot or next chapter and I used it as a reward to study. I used it as a reward to get out of bed sometimes. When I was really depressed I thought 'but I want to know what happens in the next chapter' 'I want to read one more fic by x author' 'maybe x abandoned fic finally gets an update'.

Around september I was scrolling through the reddie tag and I find this fic, 'Wrong Number' by Blissymbolics (amazing writer!!) that sounds really interesting. Is a story in which Eddie texts a stranger by accident and it turns out to be Richie... guys... I cried re-reading that fic lmao. I can't explain exactly why, it felt like finding an old friend on a crowded street and giving them a big hug. I was in a call with friend like "DUDE I FOUND IT!! I FOUND THAT AWESOME FIC I READ IN TWITTER!"

After that I think something clicked, I was like, yeah I love this place, I want to be part of the communities, I want to interact and leave comments, the writers deserve to know how much I love their works, how they make my day better every time they post.

So yeah, it haunted me, and it saved me. It literally saved me.

has anyone else ever had a fanfic that just… haunts them? like it’s been months and maybe even years since you read it, but it just lingers with you and you can never truly leave behind the imprint it made on you? and maybe it’s just a single line, one sentence that you can’t shake off, that takes up residence in your mind and stays there, feeding into your psyche and subtly influencing your brainspace and maybe even your writing or other works?

[seemabhatnagar]

"Unyielding Persistence: Overcoming Time's Play in the Pursuit of Justice"

In the relentless pursuit of a dream, sometimes life throws curveballs that test our resolve and patience. For Rakshit Shivam Prakash, an aspiring UPSC candidate, the journey was marked by unforeseen challenges and unexpected turns. Just when he thought all hope was lost, a twist of fate and unwavering persistence brought him back into the race for justice.

Rakshit Shivam Prakash v. Union of India & Another

WP (Civil)890/2023

Before the Supreme Court of India

Hear by Hon'ble Mr. Justice P S Narasimha J & Hon'ble Mr. Justice Pankaj Mithal J

A Battle Against Time: The Pursuit of Justice

In the intricate journey of aspiring for a position in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Rakshit Shivam Prakash found himself amidst unexpected challenges. The year was 2014, and the rigorous selection process for the Civil Services Examination was underway. Rakshit qualified through the Prelims, Mains, and even the Interview. He was called for a medical examination on April 29, 2015, conducted by the Central Standing Medical Board. However, fate had a different plan; he was declared ‘temporarily unfit’ due to a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 31.75, just above the prescribed standard of 30 BMI. A re-medical test was scheduled for July 14, 2015.

Then, an unusual twist occurred. On July 4, 2015, UPSC published the final result, and Rakshit’s name was absent. Disheartened and assuming the selection process was over, he missed the re-medical test. It seemed that time had conspired against him, leaving him to face the harsh reality of unfulfilled dreams.

But, as they say, the most amazing things happen when you least expect them. On January 19, 2016, a consolidated reserve list of 126 candidates was published to fill remaining posts. Astonishingly, Rakshit secured the 93rd rank in this list. Candidates ranked below him were allocated services, reigniting his hopes and transforming his disappointment into a legitimate claim.

Rakshit approached the Central Administrative Tribunal in Patna, seeking equal treatment as others in the reserve list. However, his application was dismissed based on a similar case of Mr. K. Rajashekhara Reddy, who also missed qualifying in the medical examination. Undeterred, Rakshit filed a Writ Petition before the High Court of Patna.

During the pendency of his Writ Petition, a surprising development occurred. The High Court of Telangana ruled in favor of Mr. K. Rajashekhara Reddy on April 6, 2021, and the Supreme Court later directed a re-medical examination, finding him fit for all services. This decision rekindled Rakshit’s determination, leading him to withdraw his Writ Petition and make a fresh representation to the Respondent Authorities.

However, his representation was met with a setback. The Department of Personnel and Training upheld the Government’s stance on the time limit for medical re-examination, confirming his status as ‘Unfit for all Services.’ This led Rakshit to approach the Supreme Court under Article 32, seeking directions for allocation of service and a re-medical examination.

In August 2023, the Supreme Court entertained his petition. Despite rejecting his plea for allocation of service and consequential benefits, the Court acknowledged the unique circumstances. It directed a re-medical examination to be conducted within four weeks, providing a glimmer of hope amidst the prolonged struggle.

Rakshit’s story exemplifies how unusual circumstances and the passage of time can either thwart or favor our aspirations. Whether it was the unexpected twist of finding his name in the reserve list or the favorable decision for a re-medical examination, it underscores the importance of persistence and vigilance in the face of adversity.

Seema Bhatnagar

[theirregulars2]

Week 5 The write-up of Chapter 2 and Discussion for programming languages

On September 23,2021, we started to gather related literature and existing systems to be use as a references for our proposed project. Luckily, we found lots of related literature and systems in a credible sites such as Research Gate and Google Scholar.

One of the related literature we found was the study of Jamhar and Hastuti (2019) , entitled Parents Involvement on Children’s Education at Elementary School in Omesuri, Lembata Regency. This study aims to ascertain how parents involvement in child's studies can affect their academic performance which resulted that, parental involvement in child's school performance has positive effects in their academic achievements especially for elementary students.

In addition, the study of Gomathy, Kumar, Manesh, and Reddy (2022), Agarwal, Joshi, and Naib(2021) and Samuel(2018), pointed out that having a Student Information System(SIS) can help institutions to maintain students' data efficiently. Moreover, SIS can also lessen the institution's time-consuming process of student activities, storing students' data, and searching students' records. This can also reduce the cost spent by the institutions to buy papers, files, and other stationary stuff that will be used for manual storing of students' data. As  the  school  increases in  its enrollees  every  year,  the  harder  it  becomes  to  deal  with, particularly in  public  academic  institutions  wherein  the population of the students is massive. Additionally, the Student Information System(SIS) can be deployed to maintain and secure the students' records(Samuela, 2018).

After constructing the write-up of Chapter 2, which is the Review Related System and Review Related Literature, we decided to conduct an online meeting through Google Meet to discuss what programming languages should we use to build our system. After a few minutes of discussion, our hacker Mr. Riemann Villaroza decided to use HTML 5, PHP 8, CSS, JavaScript, Visual Basic.net, and XAMPP, and instead of using MySQL, he decided to replace the later with Oracle Database.

Generally, we are looking forward to include the systems interface on our next update.

Project Title: A Student Information System for Patag Elementary School at Naawan, Misamis Oriental

Client: Patag Elementary School

Proponents: MADRIDANO, Charlyn- Hustller VILLAROZA, Riemann - Hacker SIJALBO, Princess Dawn - Hipster

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding- Proverbs 9:10"

-Code your way to success

[theoniprince]

Talent Show - [I’m Your Biggest Fan]

ReddieWeek 2021,  12-13 Sep

[I’m Your Biggest Fan]

“Okay, okay! Let me tell you another adorable thing about my Spagehtti Man.”

The annual talent show at Derry High. Actually Richie wanted to tell jokes and doing voices as usual, but then he had other plans. He started to talk about Eddie non-stop. Oh and yes - he is wearing a “Team Spaghetti” - Shirt.

@reddieweek

[eddieeatsass]

Hold Me Like You Held on to Life

Richie Tozier is a 137 year old vampire. Eddie Kaspbrak is the world's chosen slayer. The relationship between them should be simple, but when an apparition with a poor sense of humor places a spell on them that seemingly makes them fall in love, that relationship gets a bit more complicated. Along with the help of their friends, they try and find a way to reverse the spell and get back to normal, but things never really work out as planned, do they?

Read on AO3 Read first installment in series (Posted for @reddieweek day 5: Mythical Creature 🧛)

[reddieweek]

Reddie fans, get ready!

This will be the third annual Reddie Week! It is a prompt-based challenge designed to encourage creators to create, and to show appreciation for those in our fandom. There will be a week’s worth of prompts, and a two-week posting period starting 12 September 2021 - 25 September 2021 with a total of 21 prompts (3 per day) to choose from.

In order to avoid fatigue, this year you will have two full days to post content pertaining to that day’s prompt. Which should hopefully give you plenty of rest time in between creating!

All types of fanworks are welcome (writing, visual art, fanmixes, etc.), the only criteria is that they must feature both Richie and Eddie. We ask that you properly warn for anything potentially triggering. Please have the warnings at the top of your post somewhere, and in your tags.

Please feel free to follow this account for reminders, and to see reblogs of everyone’s work. You can share you work by tagging it #reddieweek or tagging @reddieweek in your post.

Any questions? (See our FAQ for extra info!) Concerns? Ideas you want to share? Send this blog an ask or message the mods: @eddieeatsass​ and @fuji09​​

For ease of planning, the prompts are as follows:

Day 1&2 : Accidental Dating / FBI Monitor AU / I'm Your Biggest Fan

Day 3&4: Whump / The Chosen One / Regency AU

Day 5&6: Doppelgänger / High School Sweethearts / De-Aging

Day 7&8: Ancient Egypt or Greece / Space AU / Tunnel of Love

Day 9&10: Mythical Creature / Shop AU (coffee shop, bakery, florist, etc.) / Bachelor Auction

Day 11&12: Dark AU / Game Night / Spaghetti Kiss

Day 13&14: Boarding School AU / Blind Without 'Em / Underwater Ruins

We also have an AO3 collection which we encourage you to add your fanworks to! Where to keep up to date outside of tumblr: Discord and AO3 ♥  We hope you’re all as excited as we are! Happy creating!   ♥

[boyduroy]

cw: blood

🎈 @reddieweek 2021 🎈

Day 7/8: Ancient Greece

one of my favorite tragic love stories is that of Apollo and his lover Hyacinthus, who was struck in the head by a discus thrown by Apollo (some versions say it was accidental, some say the west wind god Zephyrus redirected the discus out of jealousy). I used renaissance painting interpretations of the scene for this piece, which I will admit I kind of prefer in its half-finished state :)

[boyduroy]

*he's been flirting*

"fuck you fbi man"

Reddie Week!! Prompt 1: FBI Monitor au /biggest fan (i combined them 😜)

Anyway, Eddie is Richie's fbi monitor, but he really wants to meet him in person *organically* so he buys tickets to a meet and greet. He's already in love cause Richie's been flirting w his webcam for months.

@reddieweek

[august-anon]

Fresh and New

Here is your ancient backlog fic! I don’t even remember writing this one lol, but before i just did the barest edit of it, the last time I had touched it had been August 18, 2021. I need to stop stuffing these fics in the backlog for so long sdkjfhdsf

----

Fandom: It (movies)

Ship(s): Reddie (pre-relationship)

Characters (lee/ler): Lee!Eddie/Ler!Richie

Word Count: 1327 words

Summary: Eddie's cast is finally off. Richie is delighted to learn that the newly revealed skin is horribly ticklish.

[ao3 link]

----------------------

Richie’s bike was in the bushes when they got back from the hospital. It wasn’t hidden for shit, but thankfully, his mom somehow missed it while ushering Eddie inside.

It took forever for him to escape her and head upstairs, her overbearing worries at all time high with the cast freshly off his arm. She was convinced he would break it again, that it wasn’t fully healed, that he was in pain. She shoved prescriptions in his direction, bottle after bottle, and he was shocked she didn’t insist on watching him take them. Instead, he gathered the medications up in his arms and raced up the stairs.

The moment he was inside, he dumped the bottles in the trashcan right inside his door. Then he whipped around and pushed the door shut, locking it with the multiple locks Mike, Ben, and Richie had come over to help him install a few weeks ago (well, Mike and Ben had helped, Richie stood around making jokes and “supervising,” whatever the hell that meant) when his mom was actually out of the house for once.

Then he turned around and scowled at Richie, who was sprawled across Eddie’s bed reading a comic, his shoes still on. Eddie kicked his own shoes off as he marched toward the bed, chopping with his hand as he whisper-shouted.

“What the fuck are you doing here? My mom could’ve seen, you dick! And get your fucking shoes off the bed, do you know how many germs are on them?! You’re getting those germs all over where I sleep!”

Richie grinned at him, carelessly tossing the comic onto the bedside table. He spread his arms, sprawling even further across the bed.

“Eds, come on! I had to make sure they didn’t have to chop your arm off!”

Eddie scowled at him, holding up his completely intact, finally uncasted arm. It had an odd-looking tan line, having been hidden from the sun the last half of the summer, but other than that it was nearly back to normal.

“My arm’s fine, fucknut,” Eddie said, making sure to keep his voice low so that his mom wouldn’t hear. “The doctor said it would take a little while to build my strength back up, but it’s fine.”

Richie opened his mouth and spewed some other stupid joke that Eddie didn’t wind up catching, but his eyes were filled with relief. He couldn’t hide that, not from Eddie, and something relaxed in him when he realized that Richie had actually been worried, despite all his obnoxious teasing. When his mom worried, it was suffocating and sickening, it made him want to run away and never see her again, never let her touch him again. But when Richie and the other Losers worried, Eddie felt nothing but warmth, even if tried to bury it down and pretend to be annoyed.

So, instead of rising to the bait of Richie’s teasing, Eddie climbed onto the bed with him. Richie kicked his shoes off and curled up facing Eddie, staring at his arm.

“Does it hurt?” He asked quietly.

Eddie shook his head. “No. Feels kinda weird, though, since it’s been covered for so long.”

Richie reached out for Eddie’s arm and Eddie let him, relaxing back into the pillows and headboard as Richie took his arm to examine it for himself. He dragged two gentle fingers down the underside of Eddie’s forearm, and Eddie couldn’t help squirming as goosebumps spread across his arms and legs.

“Careful,” he mumbled. “Tickles.”

Richie grinned. “Oh it does, does it?”

Eddie realized his mistake all too late, his eyes widening. He half-heartedly tugged at his arm, but Richie could probably tell he didn’t mean it. He always could, somehow, only tickling Eddie when his fighting back was clearly just for show.

His fingers skittered gently up and down the sensitive skin on the underside of Eddie’s forearm, being mindful of Eddie’s mom without even having to be asked. It kept Eddie in fits of giggles, but nothing loud enough for his mom to be able to hear from down the stairs, especially if she had the TV on. Eddie squirmed and bit his lip and buried his face in Richie’s shoulder, but he never told Richie to stop. If he was being honest, it felt kind of nice. And it helped remind him that he was okay.

“Aw, Spagheds!” Richie cooed quietly into his ear. “If this isn’t the most precious thing I’ve ever fucking seen. Still cute, cute cute as ever!”

Eddie muffled a squeal into Richie’s hideous shirt when Richie focused his fingernails on the thin skin of Eddie’s wrist.

“Shut the fuck up, dickwad!” He hissed through his giggling. “Don’t fucking call me that!”

Richie hummed. “Which one? Spagheds? Or cute?”

Eddie tugged on his arm, but Richie didn’t let it go. If anything, his skittering fingers just got more ticklish. Eddie could feel his face going red, both from Richie’s teasing and from his own laughter, and he was glad Richie wouldn’t be able to see it, with his face buried in Richie’s shoulder and neck.

“Both, you asshole!”

Richie let out a hum. “Hey, maybe don’t call the guy tickling you silly names.”

Eddie barely had time to gasp before one of Richie’s hands was tickling gently at his waist, the other still spidering away at the tingling skin of his uncasted arm. Much to his own disgust, he had to shove some of Richie’s shirt into his mouth and bite down to keep his laughter muffled enough that it wouldn’t carry down the stairs. He squirmed against Richie’s grip, finally pulling his arm away and trying to roll out of range of Richie’s touch.

Unfortunately, Richie’s arms were freakishly long, and Eddie started to slide off the bed before he even got close to escaping Richie’s torment. They were probably getting a bit too big to be tussling in a twin bed (well, Richie was. Eddie was still desperately awaiting his own growth spurt. He would be taller than Richie someday, he knew it, he had to be).

Before he could fully fall over the side of the bed, Richie’s arms wrapped around his waist and tugged him back up, protecting them both from the thump it would’ve caused to alert Eddie’s mom. Richie pulled Eddie across the rest of the bed so they were curled up together like they did in the hammock sometimes when no one else was in the clubhouse, pressed together instead of sitting at opposite ends.

“Wanna read my comic with me?” Richie asked quietly. “It's new, just got it.”

Eddie twisted around in Richie’s hold as Richie reached over to grab the comic, not waiting for an answer. He didn’t need to, though, he knew Eddie well enough that the answer would be yes.

“Only if you don’t do the Voices so loud that my mom hears, again,” Eddie said.

Richie chuckled under his breath. This seemed to be the only time Richie was able to keep quiet. The rest of the time he was brash and unhinged and as loud as he could possibly be, but when it was just the two of them, curled together in hiding from Sonia Kaspbrack’s wrath, Richie quieted, became softer, less jagged around the edges. It felt nice, that Eddie was the only one to see this.

“No promises,” Richie replied. Despite that, as they read and Richie assigned Voices to each character, his volume stayed respectfully quiet.

Eddie relaxed into Richie’s hold, reading along with him and turning the page when Richie reached the end of it. Richie’s free hand, the one that should have been turning the pages, was busy tracing nonsense shapes into Eddie’s newly freed, wildly sensitive forearm, leaving Eddie giggling quietly into Richie’s shoulder every few moments when it tickled just a little too much. Not that Eddie was complaining.

It was the safest he’d ever felt after a hospital visit.

[heytherejulietx]

amber’s 2021 mutuals appreciation post!!

as of writing this, it’s approximately half an hour until 2022 and what a year it’s been! i started this year on tumblr leaving an old fandom and being welcomed into the riverdale one, and from then i’ve joined countless others - including one i started within the past week. every fandom i joined i’ve been welcomed with open arms from some amazing mutuals, all of which who i love to pieces even if we don’t speak much.

listed underneath are the mutuals who mean the absolute most to me. whether we spoke the whole year or i’ve only known you for a few months, you all mean the absolute world to me. you’ve all helped me through so much, maybe without even realising it, and i have so much to thank you for. i won’t ramble on, but i hope you all know how much you mean to me. every single one of you are amazing and deserve the world. i love you all so much. i hope you all have an absolutely incredible 2022.

@sl-ash-er @bucky-j-barnes @leebydeeby @thegrxywitch @the-young-and-forgotten @michaelwheelers @kpopgirlbtssvt @william-byers @kieumy @jaskierstransmascswag

listed underneath here are all of the other mutuals who have made an impact in my life over the past year or so, no matter how small. whether i’ve known you since january or we’ve only spoken within the past few days, i just want to say a massive thank you. you all inspire me to keep doing what i do on here and you all mean so much to me. i’m so honoured to have so many amazing mutuals. you all deserve the best and i hope you have the most amazing 2022, thank you all for being incredible.

@nocturness @adorably-sweet-hufflepuff @oopskashish @andromedaa-tonks @marieeeqg @dracosathenaeum @just-another-ficwriter @blue00phoenix @amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines @heytherejones @sweetsfuckingpea @like-romeoandjuliet-love @literarygetaway21 @bugheadsfangirl @middleagedresidentofriverdale @winterlovesong1 @raymondebidochonlifechoices @pinkchucks-pinkcheeks @flusteredloser @eddiegaspbrak @losersclubisms @gayshipsandanxiety @rwprincess @freezing82 @kitwalker02 @sunshinereddie @thestaredown @pjobroadwayslut14 @fabulouspotatosister @hbiccjsblog @reddie-fangirl24 @profanityforlife @fairybellworld @just-a-belgian-girl @crazymisscarly @booksmusicteaandanimals @lucivar @veronicatopaz @suffering-and-happy-about-it

i know i’m not the best at keeping in contact so all of you please feel free to message me or send me an ask at my point.

i love you all so much. happy new year! 🤍🎉

[path-of-my-childhood]

CABIN FEVER - Aaron Dessner: Producing folklore and evermore

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Tom Doyle

The pandemic gave Taylor Swift a chance to explore new musical paths, with two lockdown albums co-written and produced by the National's Aaron Dessner.

Few artists during the pandemic have been as prolific as Taylor Swift. In July 2020, she surprise-released folklore, a double-length album recorded entirely remotely and in isolation. It went on to become the biggest global seller of the year, with four million sales and counting. Then, in December, she repeated the trick with the 15-song evermore, which quickly became Swift's eighth consecutive US number one.

In contrast to her country-music roots and the shiny synth-pop that made her a superstar, both folklore and evermore showcased a very different Taylor Swift sound: one veering more towards atmospheric indie and folk. The former album was part-produced by Swift and her regular co-producer Jack Antonoff (St Vincent, Lana Del Rey), while the other half of the tracks were overseen by a new studio collaborator, Aaron Dessner of the National. For evermore, aside from one Antonoff-assisted song, Dessner took full control of production.

Good Timing

Although his band are hugely popular and even won a Grammy for their 2017 album Sleep Well Beast, Aaron Dessner admits that it initially felt strange for an indie-rock guitarist and keyboard player to be pulled into such a mainstream project. Swift had already declared herself a fan of the National, and first met the band back in 2014. Nonetheless, Dessner was still surprised when the singer sent him a text "out of the blue" last spring. "I mean, I didn't think it was a hoax," he laughs. "But it was very exciting and a moment where you think it's like serendipity or something, especially in the middle of the pandemic. When she asked if I would ever consider writing with her, I just happened to have a lot of music that I had worked really hard on. So, the timing was sort of lucky. It opened up this crazy period of collaboration. It was a pretty wild ride."

Since 2016, Aaron Dessner has been based at his self-built rural facility, Long Pond Studio, in the Hudson Valley, upstate New York. The only major change to the studio since SOS last spoke to Dessner in October 2017 has been the addition of a vintage WSW Siemens console built in 1965. "It had been refurbished by someone," he says, "and I think there's only three of them in the United States. I heard it was for sale from our friend [and the National producer/mixer] Peter Katis. That's a huge improvement here."

Although the National made Sleep Well Beast and its 2019 successor I Am Easy To Find at Long Pond, the band members are scattered around the US and Europe, meaning Dessner is no stranger to remote working and file sharing. This proved to be invaluable for his work with Swift. Dessner spent the first six weeks of lockdown writing music that he believed to be for Big Red Machine, his project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Instead, many of these work-in-progress tracks would end up on folklore. Their first collaboration (and the album's first single), 'cardigan', for instance, emerged from an idea Dessner had been working on backstage during the National's European arena tour of Winter 2019.

"I sent her a folder and in the middle of the night she sent me that song," Dessner explains. "So, the next morning I was just listening to it, like, `Woah, OK, this is crazy."

On The Move

As work progressed, it quickly became apparent that Swift and Dessner were very much in tune as a songwriting and producing unit. There was very little Dessner had to do, he says, in terms of chopping vocals around to shape the top lines. "I think it's because I'm so used to structuring things like a song, with verses and choruses and bridges," he reckons. "In most cases, she sort of kept the form. If she had a different idea, she would tell me when she was writing and I would chop it up for her and send it to her. But, mostly, things kind of stayed in the form that we had."

Dessner and Swift were working intensively and at high speed throughout 2020, so much so that on one occasion the producer sent the singer a track and went out for a run in the countryside around Long Pond. By the time he got back, Swift had already written 'the last great american dynasty' and it was waiting for him in his inbox. "That was a crazy moment," he laughs. "One of the astonishing things about Taylor is what a brilliant songwriter she is and the clarity of her ideas and, when she has a story to tell, the way she can tell it. I think she's just been doing it for so long, she has a facility that makes you feel like you could never do what she's capable of. But we were a good pair because I think the music was inspiring to her in such a way that the stories were coming."

Swift's contributions to folklore were recorded in a makeshift studio in her Los Angeles home. Laura Sisk engineered the sessions as the singer recorded her vocals, using a Neumann U47, in a neighbouring bedroom. Live contact between Swift, Sisk, Dessner and Long Pond engineer Jonathan Low was done through real-time online collaboration platform Audiomovers.

"We would listen in remotely and kind of go back and forth," says Dessner. "We used Audiomovers and then we would have Zoom as a backup. But mainly we were just using Audiomovers, so we could actually be in her headphones. It's powerful, it's great. I've used it a lot with people during this time. Then, later on, when we recorded evermore, a lot of the vocals were done here at the studio actually when Taylor was visiting when we did the [Disney+ documentary] Long Pond Sessions. But Taylor's vocals for folklore were all done remotely."

Keeping Secrets

Given the huge international interest in Swift, the team had to work with an elaborate file-sharing arrangement to ensure that the tracks didn't leak online. Understandably, Dessner won't be drawn on the specifics. "Yeah, I mean we had to be very careful, so everything was very secretive," he says. "There were passwords on both ends and we communicated in a specific way when sharing mixes and everything. There was a high level of confidentiality and data encryption. It was sort of a learning curve.

"I'm not used to that," he adds, "'cause usually we're just letting files kind of fly all over the Internet [laughs]. But I think with someone like her, there's just so many people that are paying attention to every move that she makes, which can be a little, I think, oppressive for her. We tried to make it as comfortable as possible and we got used to how to get things to her and back to us. It worked pretty well."

Drums & Guitars

For the generally minimalist beat programming on the records, Dessner would sometimes turn to his more expensive new analogue drum generators - Vermona's DRM1 and Dave Smith's Tempest - but more often used the Synthetic Bits iOS app FunkBox. "There's just a lot of great vintage drum machine sounds in there, and they sound pretty cool, especially if you overdrive it," he says. "Often I send that through an amplifier, or through effects into an amplifier. Then I have a [Roland) TR-8 and a TR-8S that I use a lot. I also use the drum machine in the [Teenage Engineering] OP-1. So, a song like 'willow', that's just me tapping the OP-1."

Elsewhere, Dessner's guitar work appears on the tracks, with the intricate melodic layering on 'the last great american dynasty' from folklore having been inspired by Radiohead's In Rainbows. "Almost all of the electric guitar on Taylor's records is played direct through a REDDI DI into the Siemens board," he says. "It's usually just my 1971 Telecaster played direct and it just sounds great. Oftentimes I just put a little spring reverb on it and sometimes I'll overdrive the board like it's an amplifier, 'cause it breaks up really beautifully.

"I have a 1965 [Gibson] Firebird that I play usually through this 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb. So, if I am playing into an amp, that's what it is. But on 'the last great american dynasty', those little pointillistic guitars, that's just played direct with the Telecaster through the board."

Elsewhere, Aaron Dessner took Taylor Swift even further out of her sonic comfort zone. A key track on folklore, the Cocteau Twins-styled 'epiphany', features her voice amid a wash of ambient textures, created by Dessner slowing down and reversing various instrumental parts in Pro Tools. "I created a drone using the Mellotron [MD4000D] and the Prophet and the OP-1 and all kinds of synth pads," he says. "Then I duplicated all the tracks, and some of them I reversed and some of them I dropped an octave. All manner of using varispeed and Polyphonic Elastic Audio and changing where they were sitting. Just to create like this Icelandic glacier of sounds was my idea. Then I wrote the chord progression against that.

"The [Pro Tools] session was not happy," he adds with a chuckle. "It kept crashing. Eventually I had to print the drone but I printed it by myself and there was some crackle in it. It was distorting. And then I couldn't recreate it so Jon Low, who was helping me, was kind of mad at me 'cause he was like, 'You can't do that.' And I was like, 'Well, I was working quickly. I didn't know it'd become a song."

Orchestra Of Nowhere

Meanwhile, the orchestrations that appear on several of the tracks were scored by Aaron's twin brother and National bandmate, Bryce Dessner, who is located in France. "I would just make him chord charts of the songs and send them to him in France," Aaron says. "Then he would orchestrate things in Sibelius and send the parts to me. I would send the parts and the instrumental tracks to different players remotely and they would record them literally in their bedrooms or in their attics. None of it was done as a group, it was all done separately. But that's how we've always worked in the National so it's quite natural."

On folklore standout track 'exile', Justin Vernon of Bon Iver delivered his stirring vocal for the duet remotely from his home in Eaux Claires, Wisconsin. "He's renovating his studio, so he has a little home studio in his garage," says Dessner. "It was Taylor's idea to approach him. I sent him Taylor's voice memo of her singing both parts, and he got really excited and loved the song and then he wrote the extra part in the bridge.

"I do a lot of work remotely with Justin also, so it was easy to send him tracks and he would track to it and send back his vocals. I was sending him stems, so usually it's just a vocal stem of Taylor and an instrumental stem and then if he wants something deeper, I'll give him more stems. But generally, he's just working with the vocal layers and an instrumental."

Vernon also provided the grainy beat that kicks off 'closure', one of two tracks on evermore that started life as a sketch for the second Big Red Machine album. "It was this little loop that Justin had given me in this folder of 'Starters', he calls them. I had heard that and been playing the piano to it. But I was hearing it in 5/4, although it's not in 5/4. 'Closure' really opened everything up further. There were no real limits to where we were gonna try to write songs."

Given the number of remote players, Dessner says there were surprisingly few problems with the file swapping and that it was a fairly painless technical process. "It was pretty smooth, but there were issues," he admits. "Sometimes sample-rate issues, or if I happened to give someone an instrumental that was an MP3, that sometimes lines up differently than if you send them an actual WAV that's bounced on the grid. So, sometimes I'd have to kinda eyeball things.

"If there was trouble it started to be because of track counts. I probably only used 20 percent of what was actually recorded, 'cause we would try a lot of things, y'know. So, eventually the sessions got kinda crazy and you'd have to deactivate a lot of things and print things. But we got used to that."

Soft Piano

Aaron Dessner's characteristic dampened upright piano sound, familiar from the National's albums, is much in evidence throughout both folklore and evermore. "The upright is a Yamaha U1 that I've had for more than a decade. Usually, I play it with the soft pedal down and that's the sound of 'hoax' or 'seven' or 'cardigan', y'know, that felted sound. It kind of almost sounds like an electric piano.

"I always mic it the same way, just with two [AKG] 414s, and they're always the same distance off the wall. I had a studio in Brooklyn for 10 years and then when I moved here, I copied the same [wooden] pattern on the wall. And the reason I did that is 'cause of how much I love how this piano sounds bouncing off that wall. It just does something really special for the harmonics."

When on other folklore songs, such as 'exile' or 'the 1', where the piano was the main sonic feature of the track, Dessner played his Steinway grand. "A lot of times we use a pair of Coles [4038s] on the Steinway, just cause it's darker. But sometimes we'll have the 414s there as well and choose."

Keeping Warm

On both folklore and evermore, Taylor Swift's voice is very much front and center and high in the mix, and generally sounds fairly dry. "I think the main thing was I wanted her vocals to have a more full range than maybe you typically hear," Dessner explains. "'Cause I think a lot of the more pop-oriented records are mixed a certain way and they take some of the warmth out of the vocal, so that it's very bright and it kinda cuts really well on the radio. But she has this wonderful lower warmth frequency in her voice which is particularly important on a song like `seven'. If you carved out that mud, y'know, it wouldn't hit you the same way. Or, like, `cardigan', I think it needs that warmth, the kind of fuller feeling to it. It makes it darker, but to me that's where a lot of emotion is."

Effects-wise, almost all of the treatments were done in the box. "There's no outboard reverbs printed," says Dessner. "The only things that we did print would be like an [Eventide] H3000 or sometimes the [WEM] CopiCat tape delay for just a really subtle slap. But generally, it's just different reverbs in the box that Jon was using. He uses the Valhalla stuff quite a bit and some other UAD reverbs, like the [Capitol] Chambers. I often just use Valhalla VintageVerb and the [Avid] Black Spring and simple things."

In some instances, the final mix ended up being the never-bettered rough mix, while other songs took far more work. "'cardigan' is basically the rough, as is `seven'. So, like the early, early mixes, when we didn't even know we were mixing, we never were able to make it better. Like if you make it sound 'good', it might not be as good 'cause it loses some of its weird magic, y'know. But songs like `the last great american dynasty' or 'mad woman', those songs were a little harder to create the dynamics the way you want them, and the pay-off without going too far, and with also just keeping in the kind of aesthetic that we were in. Those were harder, I would say.

"On evermore, I would say 'willow' was probably the hardest one to finish just because there were so many ways it could've gone. Eventually we settled back almost to the point where it began. So, there's a lot of stuff that was left out of 'willow', just because the simplicity of the idea I think was in a way the strongest."

The subject of this month's Inside Track article, 'willow' was the first song written for evermore, immediately following the release of folklore. "It almost felt like a dare or something," Dessner laughs. "We were writing, recording and mixing all in one kind of work stream and we went from one record to the other almost immediately. We were just sort off to the races. We didn't really ever stop since April."

Rubber & Vinyl

Sometimes, Dessner and Swift drew inspiration from unlikely sources; `no body, no crime', for instance, started when he gave her a 'rubber bridge' guitar made by Reuben Cox of the Old Style Guitar Shop in LA. "He's my very old friend," says Dessner of Cox. "He buys undervalued vintage guitars. Stuff that was made in the '50s and '60s as sort of learner guitars, like old Silvertones and Kays and Harmonys. These kinds of guitars which now are quite special, but they're still not valued the same way that vintage Fenders or Gibsons are valued. Then, he customizes them.

"Recently he started retrofitting these guitars with a rubber bridge and flatwound strings. He'll take, like, an acoustic Silvertone from 1958 and put a bridge on it that's covered in this kind of rubber that deadens the strings, so it really has this kind of dead thrum to it. And he puts two pickups in there, one that's more distorted and one that's cleaner. They're just incredible guitars. I thought Taylor would enjoy having one 'cause she loves the sound. So, I had Reuben make one for her and she used it to write `no body, no crime'."

Another friend of Dessner's, Ryan Olsen, has developed a piece of software called the Allovers Hi-Hat Generator which helped create the unusual harmonic loops that feature on `marjorie'. "It's not available on the market," Dessner says of the software. "It's just something that he uses personally, but I think hopefully eventually it'll come out. I wouldn't say it's artificial intelligence software but there's something very intelligent about it [laughs]. It basically analyses audio information and is able to separate audio into identifiable samples and then put them into a database. You then can design parameters for it to spit out sequences that are incredibly musical.

"When Ryan comes here, he'll just take all kinds of things that I give him and run it through there and then it'll spit out, like, three hours of stuff. Then I go through it and find the layers that I love, then I loop them. You can hear it also on the song 'happiness', the drumming in the background. It's not actually played. That's drums that have been sampled and then re-analyzed and re-sequenced out of this Allovers Hi-Hat Generator."

The song `marjorie' is named after Swift's opera-singer grandmother and so, fittingly, her voice can be heard flitting in and out of the mix at the end of the track. "Taylor's family gave us a bunch of recordings of her grandmother," Dessner explains. "But they were from old, very scratchy, noisy vinyl. So, we had to denoise it all using [iZotope's] RX and then I went in and I found some parts that I thought might work. I pitch-shifted them into the key and then placed them. It took a while to find the right ones, but it's really beautiful to be able to hear her. It's just an incredibly special thing, I think."

Meet At The Pond

Taylor Swift finally managed to get together with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff in September 2020 for the filming of folklore: the long pond studio sessions, featuring the trio live-performing the album. It also provided an opportunity for Swift to add her vocals to some of the evermore tracks.

"It did allow us to have more fun, I think," says Dessner. "Y'know, drink more wine and just kinda be in the same place and have the feeling of blasting the music here and dancing around and just enjoying ourselves. She's really a lovely person to hang out with, so in that sense I'm glad that we had that chance to work together in person.

"We were using a [Telefunken] U47 to record Taylor here," he adds. "Either we were using one of the Siemens preamps on the board, which are amazing. Or I have Neve 1064s [preamps/EQs] and we use a Lisson Grove [AR-i] tube compressor generally."

One entirely new song, `tis the damn season', came out of this face-to-face approach, which Swift wrote in the middle of the night after the team had stayed up late drinking. "We had a bunch of wine actually," Dessner laughs, "and then everybody went to sleep, I thought. But I think she must have had this idea swimming around in her head, 'cause the next morning when she arrived, she sang 'Us the damn season' for me in my kitchen. It's maybe my favourite song we've written together. Then she sang it at dinner for me and my wife Stine and we were all crying. It’s just that kind of a song, so it was quite special.”

National Unity

One key track on evermore, 'coney island', features all of the members of the National and sees Swift duetting with their singer Matt Berninger. "My brother [Bryce] actually originated that song," says Aaron Dessner. "I sent him a reference at one point - I can't remember what it was - and then he was sort of inspired to write that chord progression. Then we worked together to sort of develop it and I wrote a bunch of parts and we structured it.

"Taylor and William Bowery [the songwriting pseudonym of Swift's boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn] wrote 'coney island' and she sang a beautiful version. It felt kind of done, actually. But then I think we all collectively thought, Taylor and myself and Bryce, like this was the closest to a National song."

Dessner then asked the brothers who make up the National's rhythm section, drummer Bryan and bassist Scott Devendorf, to play on 'coney island'. Matt Berninger, as he often does with the band's own tracks, recorded his vocal at home in Los Angeles. "It was never in the same place, it was done remotely," says Dessner, "except Bryan was here at Long Pond when he played. It was great to collaborate as a band with Taylor."

No Compromise

folklore and evermore have been both enormous critical and commercial successes for Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner reckons that making these anti-pop records has freed the singer up for the future. "I think it was very liberating for her," he says. "I think that's the thing that's been probably the biggest change for her has just been being able to make songs without compromise and then release them without the promotional requirements that she's used to from the past. Obviously, it comes at this time when we're all in lockdown and nobody can tour or go on talk shows or anything. But I think for her probably it will impact what she does in the future.

"But I also think she can shapeshift again," he concludes. "Who knows where she'll go? She's had many celebrated albums from the past, but to release two albums of this quality in such a short time, it really did shine a light on her songwriting talent and her storytelling ability and also just her willingness to experiment and collaborate. Somehow, I ended up in the middle of all that and I'm very grateful."

INSIDE TRACK - Jonathan Low: Secrets of the Mix Engineers

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Paul Tingen

From sketches to final mixes, engineer Jonathan Low spent 2020 overseeing Taylor Swift’s hit lockdown albums folklore and evermore.

“I think the theme of a lot of my work nowadays, and especially with these two records, is that everything is getting mixed all the time. I always try to get the songs to sound as finalised as they can be. Obviously that’s hard when you’re not sure yet what all the elements will be. Tracks morph all the time, and yet everything is always moving forwards towards completion in some way. Everything should sound fun and inspiring to listen to all the time.”

Speaking is Jonathan Low, and the two records he refers to are, of course, Taylor Swift’s 2020 albums folklore and evermore, both of which reached number one in the UK and the US. Swift’s main producer and co‑writer on the two albums was the National’s Aaron Dessner, also interviewed in this issue. Low is the engineer, mixer and general right‑hand man at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York, where he and Dessner spent most of 2020 working on folklore and evermore, with Swift in Los Angeles for much of the time.

“In the beginning it did not feel real,” recalls Low. “There was this brand‑new collaboration, and it was amazing how quickly Aaron made these instrumental sketches and Taylor wrote lyrics and melodies to them, which she initially sent to us as iPhone voice memos. During our nightly family dinners in lockdown, Aaron would regularly pull up his phone and say, ‘Listen to this!’ and there would be another voice memo from Taylor with this beautiful song that she had written over a sketch of Aaron’s in a matter of hours. The rate at which it was happening was mind‑blowing. There was constant elevation, inspiration and just wanting to continue the momentum.

“We put her voice memos straight into Pro Tools. They had tons of character, because of the weird phone compression and cutting midrange quality you just would not get when you put someone in front of a pristine recording chain. Plus there was all this bleed. It’s interesting how that dictates the attitude of the vocal and of the song. Even though none of the original voice memos ended up on the albums, they often gave us unexpected hints. These voice memos were such on‑a‑whim things, they were really telling. Taylor had certain phrasings and inflections that we often returned to later on. They became our reference points.”

Pond Life

The making of the National’s 2017 album Sleep Well Beast and the setup at Long Pond were covered in SOS October 2017; today the studio remains pretty much the same, with the exception of a new desk. “The main space is really big, and the console sits in the middle,” says Low. “In 2019, I installed a 1965 WSW/Siemens, which has 24 line‑in and microphone channels and another 24 line channels. WSW is the Austrian branch of Siemens usually built for broadcast. It’s loaded with 811510B channels. The build quality is insane, the switches and pots feel like they were made yesterday. To me it hints at the warm haze of a Class‑A Neve channel but sits further forward in the speakers. The midrange band on the passive EQ is a huge part of its charm, it really does feel like you’re changing the tone of the actual source rather than the recording. Most microphones go through the desk on their way into Pro Tools, though we sometimes use outboard Neve 1064 mic pres. Occasionally I use the Siemens to sum a mix.

“We have a pair of ATC SCM45 monitors, which sound very clear in the large room. The ceiling is very high, and the front wall is about 25 feet behind the monitors. There are diffusers on the sidewalls and the back walls are absorbing, so there are very few reflections. Aaron and I will be listening in tons of different ways. I’ll listen in my home studio with similar ATC SCM20 monitors or on my ‘70s Marantz hi‑fi setup. Aaron is always checking things in his car, and if there’s something that is bugging him, I’ll join him in his car to find out what he hears.”

Low works at Long Pond and with Dessner most of the time, though he does find time to do other projects, among hem this last year the War On Drugs, Waxahatchee and Nap Eyes. When lockdown started in Spring 2020, Low tacked up on supplies and "had a bunch f mixes lined up". Meanwhile, on the Eest Coast, Swift had seen her Lover Fest our cancelled. With help from engineer aura Sisk, she set up a makeshift studio which she dubbed Kitty Committee in bedroom in her Los Angeles home, and began working with long-term producer nd co-writer Jack Antonoff. At the end of April, however, Swift also started working with Dessner, which took the project in different direction. The impressionistic, atmospheric, electro-folk instrumentals Dessner sent her were mostly composed nd recorded by him at Long Pond, assisted by Low.

Sketching Sessions

The instrumental sketches Aaron makes come into being in different ways," elaborates Low. "Sometimes they are more fleshed-out ideas, sometimes they are less formed. But normally Aaron will set himself up in the studio, surrounded by instruments and synths, and he'll construct a track. Once he feels it makes some kind of sense I'll come in and take a listen and then we together develop what's there.

"I don't call his sketches demos, because while many instruments are added and replaced later on, most of the original parts end up in the final version of the song. We end up in the final version of the song. We try to get the sketches to a place where they are already very engaging as instrumental are already very engaging as instrumental tracks. Aaron and I are always obsessively listening, because we constantly want to hear things that feel inspiring and musical, not just a bed of music in the background. It takes longer to create, but in this case also gave Taylor more to latch onto, both emotionally and in terms of musical inspiration. Hearing melodies woven in the music triggered new melodies."

Not long after Dessner and Low sent each sketch to Swift, they would receive her voice memos in return, and they'd load them into the Pro Tools session of the sketch in question. Dessner and Low then continued to develop the songs, in close collaboration with Swift. "Taylor's voice memos often came with suggestions for how to edit the sketches: maybe throw in a bridge somewhere, shorten a section, change the chords or arrangement somewhere, and so on. Aaron would have similar ideas, and he then developed the arrangements, often with his brother Bryce, adding or replacing instruments. This happened fast, and became very interactive between us and Taylor, even though we were working remotely. When we added instruments, we were reacting to the way my rough mixes felt at the very beginning. Of course, it was also dictated by how Taylor wrote and sang to the tracks."

Dessner supplied sketches for nine and produced 10 of folklore's 16 songs, playing many different types of guitars, keyboards and synths as well as percussion and programmed drums. Instruments that were added later include live strings, drums, trombone, accordion, clarinet, harpsichord and more, with his brother Bryce doing many of the orchestrations. Most overdubs by other musicians were done remotely as well. Throughout, Low was keeping an overview of everything that was going on and mixing the material, so it was as presentable and inspiring as possible.

Mixing folklore

Although Dessner has called folklore an "anti-pop album", the world's number-one pop mixer Serban Ghenea was drafted in to mix seven tracks, while Low did the remainder.

"It was exciting to have Serban involved," explains Low, "because he did things I'd never do or be able to do. The way the vocal sits always at the forefront, along with the clarity he gets in his mixes, is remarkable. A great example of this is on the song 'epiphany'. There is so much beautiful space and the vocal feels effortlessly placed. It was really interesting to hear where he took things, because we were so close to the entire process in every way. Hearing a totally new perspective was eye-opening and refreshing.

"Throughout the entire process we were trying to maintain the original feel. Sometimes this was hard, because that initial rawness would get lost in large arrangements and additional layering. With revisions of folklore in particular we sometimes were losing the emotional weight from earlier more casual mixes. Because I was always mixing, there was also always the danger of over-mixing.

"We were trying to get the best of each mix version, and sometimes that meant stepping backwards, and grabbing a piano chain from an earlier mix, or going three versions back to before we added orchestration. There were definitely moments of thinking, 'Is this going to compete sonically? Is this loud enough?' We knew we loved the way the songs sounded as we were building them, so we stuck with what we knew. There were times where I tried to keep pushing a mix forward but it didn't improve the song — 'cardigan' is an example of a song where we ended up choosing a very early mix."

The Low Down

"I'm originally from Philadelphia," says Jonathan Low, "and played piano, alto saxophone and guitar when growing up. My dad is an electrical engineer and audiophile hobbyist, and I learned a lot about circuit design and how to repair things. I then started building guitar pedals and guitar amps, and recorded bands at my high school using a minidisc player and some binaural microphones. After that I did a music industry programme at Drexel University, and spent a lot of time working at the recording facilities there.

"This led to me meeting Brian McTear, a producer and owner of Miner Street Studios, which became my home base from 2009 to 2014. I learned a lot from him, from developing an interest in creating sounds in untraditional ways, to how to see a record through to completion. The studio has a two-inch 16-track Ampex MM1200 tape machine and a beautiful MCI 400 console which very quickly shaped the way I think about routing and signal flow. I'm lucky to have learned this way, because a computer environment is like the Wild West: there are no rules in terms of how to get from point A to point B. This flexibility is incredible, but sometimes there are simply too many options.

"l met Aaron [Dessned] because singer-songwriter Sharon van Etten recorded her second album, Epic [2010] at Miner Street, with Brian producing. Her third album, Tramp [2012] was produced by Aaron. They came to Philly to record drums and I ended up mixing a bunch of that record. After that I would occasionally go to work in Aaron's garage studio in Brooklyn, and this became more and more a regular collaboration. I then moved from Philly up to the Hudson Valley to help Aaron build Long Pond. We first used the studio in the spring of 2016, when beginning to record the National's album Sleep Well Beast."

Onward & Upward

folklore was finished and released in July 2020. In a normal world everyone might have gone on to do other things, but without the option of touring, they simply continued writing songs, with Low holding the fort. In September, many of the musicians who played on the album gathered at Long Pond for the shooting of a making-of documentary, folklore: the long pond studio sessions, which is streamed on Disney+.

The temporary presence of Swift at Long Pond changed the working methods somewhat, as she could work with Dessner in the room, and Low was able record her vocals. After Swift left again, sessions continued until December, when evermore was released, with Dessner producing or co-producing all tracks, apart from 'gold rush' which was co-written and co-produced by Swift and Antonoff. Low recorded many of Swift's vocals for evermore, and mixed the entire album. The lead single 'willow' became the biggest hit from the album, reaching number one in the US and number three in the UK.

"Before Taylor came to Long Pond," remembers Low, "she had always recorded her vocals for folklore remotely in Los Angeles or Nashville. When I recorded, I used a modern Telefunken U47, which is our go-to vocal mic — we record all the National stuff with that — going straight into the Siemens desk, and then into a Lisson Grove AR-1 tube compressor, and via a Burl A-D converter into Pro Tools. Taylor creates and lays down her vocal arrangements very quickly, and it sounds like a finished record in very few takes."

Devils In The Detail

In his mixes, Low wanted listeners to share his own initial response to these vocal performances. "The element that draws me in is always Taylor's vocals. The first time I received files with her properly recorded but premixed vocals I was just floored. They sounded great, even with minimal EQ and compression. They were not the way I'm used to hearing her voice in her pop songs, with the vocal soaring and sitting at the very front edge of the soundscape. In these raw performances, I heard so much more intimacy and interaction with the music. It was wonderful to hear her voice with tons of detail and nuances in place: her phrasing, her tonality, her pitch, all very deliberate. We wanted to maintain that. It's more emotional, and it sounds so much more personal to me. Then there was the music..."

The arrangements on evermore are even more 'chamber pop' than on folklore, with instruments like glockenspiel, crotales, flute, French horn, celeste and harmonium in evidence. "As listeners of the National may know, Aaron's and Bryce's arrangements can be quite dense. They love lush orchestration, all sorts of percussion, synths and other electronic sounds. The challenge was trying to get them to speak, without getting in the way of the vocals. I want a casual listener to be drawn in by the vocal, but sense that something special is happening in the music as well. At the same time, someone who really is digging in can fully immerse themselves and take in all the beauty deeper in the details of the sound and arrangement. Finding the balance between presenting all the musical elements that were happening in the arrangement and this really beautiful, upfront, real-sounding vocal was the ticket."

A particular challenge is that a lot of the detail that Aaron gravitates towards happens in the low mids, which is a very warm part of our hearing spectrum that can quickly become too muddy or too woolly. A lot of the tonal and musical information lives in the low mids, and then the vocal sits more in the midrange and high mids. There's not too much in the higher frequency range, except the top of the guitars, and some elements like a shaker and the higher buzzy parts of the synths. Maintaining clarity and separation in those often complex arrangements was a major challenge."

In & Out The Box

According to Low, the final mix stage for evermore was "very short. There was a moment in the final week or so leading up to the release where the songs were developed far enough for me to sit down and try to make something very cohesive and final, finalising vocal volume, overall volume, and the vibe. There's a point in every mix where the moves get really small. When a volume ride of 0.1dB makes a difference, you're really close to being done. Earlier on, those little adjustments don't really matter.

"I often try to mix at the console, with some outboard on the two-bus, but folklore was mixed all in the box, because we were working so fast, plus initially the plan was for the mixes to be done elsewhere. I ran a couple of mixes for evermore through the console, and `closure' was the only one that stuck. It was summed through the Siemens, with an API 2500 compressor and a Thermionic Culture Phoenix and then back into Pro Tools via the Burl A-D. I will use hardware when mixing in the box, though mainly just two units: the Eventide H3000, because I have not found any plug-ins that do the same thing, and the [Thermionic] Culture Vulture, for its very broad tone shaping and distortion properties.

"The writing and the production happened closely in conjunction with the engineering and mixing, and the arrangements were dense, making many of the sessions super hefty and actually quite messy. Sounds would constantly change roles in the arrangement and sometimes plug-ins would just stack up. So final mixing involved cleaning up the sessions and stemming large groups down."

Across The Rubber Bridge

The Pro Tools mix session of 'willow' has close to 100 tracks, though there's none of the elaborate bussing that's the hallmark of some modern sessions. At the top are six drum machine tracks in green from the Teenage Engineering OP-1, an instrument that was used extensively on the album. Below that are five live percussion tracks (blue), three bass tracks (pink), and an `AUX Drums' programming track. There's a 'rubber bridge' guitar folder and aux, OP-1 synth tracks, piano tracks, 'Dream Machine' (Josh Kaufman's guitar) and E-bow tracks, Yamaha, Sequential Prophet X, Moog and Roland Juno synth tracks, and Strings and Horns aux stem tracks.

"Most of the drum tracks were performed on the OP-1 by Aaron. These are not programmed tracks. Bryan Devendorf, drummer of the National, programmed some beats on a Roland TR-8S. I ran those though the Fender Rumble bass amp, which adds some woofiness, like an acoustic kit room mic. There's an acoustic shaker, and there's an OP-1 backbeat that's subtle in the beginning, and then gets stronger towards the end of the song. I grouped all the drum elements and the bass, and sent those out to a hardware insert with the Culture Vulture, for saturation, so it got louder and more and more harmonically rich. There is this subtle growing and crescendo of intensity of the rhythm section by the end.

"The 'rubber bridge' guitars were the main anchor in the instruments. These guitars have a wooden bridge wrapped in rubber, and sound a bit like a nylon-string guitar, or a light palm mute. They're very percussive and sound best when recorded on our Neumann U47 and a DI. On many of those DI tracks I have a [SPL] Transient Designer to lower the sustain and keep them punchy, especially in the low end. There's a folder with five takes of 'rubber bridge' guitar in this session, creating this wall of unique guitar sound.

"I treated the 'rubber bridge' guitars quite extensively. There's a FabFilter Pro-Q3 cutting some midrange frequencies and some air around 10kHz. These guitars can splash out in the high end and have a boominess that's in the same range as the low end of Taylor's vocal, so I had to keep these things under control. Then I used a SoundToys Tremolator, with a quarter-note tremolo that makes the accents in the playing a bit more apparent. I like to get the acoustic guitars a little bit out of the way for the less important beats, so I have the Massey CT5 compressor side-chained to the kick drum. I also used the UAD Precision K-Stereo to make the guitars a bit wider. The iZotope Ozone Exciter adds some high mids and high-end harmonic saturation sparkly stuff, and the SoundToys EchoBoy delay is automated, with it only coming on in the bridge, where I wanted more ambience."

Growing Pains

"Once we had figured out how to sit the 'rubber bridge' guitars in the mix, the next challenge was to work out the end of the song, after the bridge. Taylor actually goes down an octave with her voice in the last chorus, and at the same time the music continues to push and grow. That meant using a lot of automation and Clip Gain adjustment to make sure the vocal always stayed on top. There also are ambient pianos playing counter-melodies, and balancing the vocals, guitars and pianos was the main focus on this song. We spent a lot of time balancing this, particularly as the track grows towards the end.

"The vocal tracks share many of the same plug-ins and settings. On the main lead vocal track I added the UAD Pultec EQP-1A, with a little bit of a cut in the low end at 30Hz, and a boost at 8kHz, which adds some modern air. The second plug-in is the Oeksound Soothe, which is just touching the vocal, and it helps with any harsh resonance stuff in the high mids, and a little in the lower mids. Next is the UAD 1176AE, and then the FabFilter Pro-Q3, doing some notches at 200Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz and close to 10kHz. I tend to do subtractive EQ on the Q3, and use more analogue-sounding plug-ins, like the Pultec or the Maag, to boost. After that is the FabFilter Pro-DS [de-esser], taking off a couple of decibels, followed by the FabFilter Saturn 2 [saturation processor], on a warm tape setting.

"Below the vocal tracks are three aux effects tracks, for the vocals. 'Long Delay' has a stereo EchoBoy going into an Altiverb with a spring reverb, for effect throws in the choruses. 'Chamber' is the UAD Capitol Chamber, which gives the vocal a nice density and size, without it being a long reverb. The 'Plate' aux is the UAD EMT140, for the longer tail. These two reverbs work in conjunction, with the chamber for the upfront space, determining where the vocal sits in the mix, and the plate more for the depth behind that.

"At the bottom of the session is a two-bus aux, which mimics the way I do the two-bus on the desk. The plug-ins are the UAD Massive Passive EQ, UAD API 2500 compressor, and the UAD Ampex ATR102. Depending on the song, I will choose 15ips or 30ips. In this case it was set to 15ips, half-inch GP9. That has a nice, aggressive, midrange push, and the GP9 bottom end goes that little bit lower. There's also a PSP Vintage Warmer, a Sonnox Oxford Inflator, plus a FabFilter Pro-L2 [limiter]. None of these things are doing very much on their own, but in conjunction give me the interaction I expect from an analogue mix chain."

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 28, 2021

Precisely timed dopamine signals establish distinct kinematic representations of skilled movements. Bova, A., Gaidica, M., Hurst, A., Iwai, Y., Hunter, J., & Leventhal, D. K. (2020). eLife, 9, e61591.

A gain-control disparity energy model for perceived depth from disparity. Chen, P.-Y., Chen, C.-C., & Tyler, C. W. (2021). Vision Research, 181, 38–46.

Uncertainty modulates value-driven attentional capture. Cho, S. A., & Cho, Y. S. (2021). Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 83(1), 142–155.

Mind Meets Machine: Towards a Cognitive Science of Human–Machine Interactions. Cross, E. S., & Ramsey, R. (2021). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(3), 200–212.

Cortical Processing of Multimodal Sensory Learning in Human Neonates. Dall’Orso, S., Fifer, W. P., Balsam, P. D., Brandon, J., O’Keefe, C., Poppe, T., … Arichi, T. (2021). Cerebral Cortex, 31(3), 1827–1836.

Spatial modulation of visual responses arises in cortex with active navigation. Diamanti, E. M., Reddy, C. B., Schröder, S., Muzzu, T., Harris, K. D., Saleem, A. B., & Carandini, M. (2021). eLife, 10, e63705.

Modeling nucleus accumbens. Elibol, R., & Şengör, N. S. (2021). Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 49(1), 21–35.

Incentive value and spatial certainty combine additively to determine visual priorities. Garner, K. G., Bowman, H., & Raymond, J. E. (2021). Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 83(1), 173–186.

Dissociating implicit and explicit ensemble representations reveals the limits of visual perception and the richness of behavior. Hansmann-Roth, S., Kristjánsson, Á., Whitney, D., & Chetverikov, A. (2021). Scientific Reports, 11(1), 3899.

Theta, but Not Gamma Oscillations in Area V4 Depend on Input from Primary Visual Cortex. Kienitz, R., Cox, M. A., Dougherty, K., Saunders, R. C., Schmiedt, J. T., Leopold, D. A., … Schmid, M. C. (2021). Current Biology, 31(3), 635-642.e3.

Age differences in decision making under known risk: The role of working memory and impulsivity. Kray, J., Kreis, B. K., & Lorenz, C. (2021). Developmental Psychology, 57(2), 241–252.

Phasic modulation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity by theta rhythm. Leung, L. S., & Law, C. S. H. (2020). Behavioral Neuroscience, 134(6), 595–612.

Modeling the influence of working memory, reinforcement, and action uncertainty on reaction time and choice during instrumental learning. McDougle, S. D., & Collins, A. G. E. (2021). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28(1), 20–39.

A new model of decision processing in instrumental learning tasks. Miletić, S., Boag, R. J., Trutti, A. C., Stevenson, N., Forstmann, B. U., & Heathcote, A. (2021). eLife, 10, e63055.

Stellate cell computational modeling predicts signal filtering in the molecular layer circuit of cerebellum. Rizza, M. F., Locatelli, F., Masoli, S., Sánchez-Ponce, D., Muñoz, A., Prestori, F., & D’Angelo, E. (2021). Scientific Reports, 11(1), 3873.

Transsynaptic mapping of Drosophila mushroom body output neurons. Scaplen, K. M., Talay, M., Fisher, J. D., Cohn, R., Sorkaç, A., Aso, Y., … Kaun, K. R. (2021). eLife, 10, e63379.

Learning to silence saccadic suppression. Scholes, C., McGraw, P. V, & Roach, N. W. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(6).

An investigation into the nonlinear coupling between CA1 layers and the dentate gyrus. Sheremet, A., Zhou, Y., Qin, Y., Kennedy, J. P., Lovett, S. D., & Maurer, A. P. (2020). Behavioral Neuroscience, 134(6), 491–515.

Unmet expectations delay sensory processes. Urgen, B. M., & Boyaci, H. (2021). Vision Research, 181, 1–9.

Human visual motion perception shows hallmarks of Bayesian structural inference. Yang, S., Bill, J., Drugowitsch, J., & Gershman, S. J. (2021). Scientific Reports, 11(1), 3714.

[siriks]

Pan-Indian film

Pan-Indian film is a term related to Indian cinema that started off with the Telugu cinema. The term gained popularity since 2015, post the success of Baahubali: The Beginning (2015). The term "Pan-Indian film" is used for a film that is simultaneously released in multiple languages like Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi with an aim to maximise the target audience and increase the revenues.Such films make an attempt to appeal to the audiences across the country. Two Telugu films Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), directed by S. S. Rajamouli changed the face of Indian cinema.The film was released in various languages across the world. Filmmakers started a new film movement, that is, rather than remaking the same film in various languages, they are dubbing the same film in various languages.Srivatsan S of The Hindu wrote that Telugu cinema has excelled in marketing Pan-Indian films. It primarily employed two strategies – promoting the film outside their home territory and collaborating with other regional stars for more visibility.Kannada film K.G.F: Chapter 1 (2018) directed by Prashanth Neel also released in five languages, thereby becoming the first major Pan-Indian film from Kannada cinema. Success of other films like 2.0 (2018), Saaho (2019), Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy (2019) made Pan-Indian films widespread to other major Indian film industries.Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea (2021) is the first major Pan-Indian film from Malayalam cinema.ollowing the success of the Telugu films Pushpa: The Rise (2021) and RRR (2022), Rahul Devulapalli of The Week identified "Content, marketing, and indulgent overseas audience" have led to the rise of pan-Indian films from Telugu cinema.

[theoniprince]

The Noble Heir & The Stable Boy

Reddie Week 2021 - Regency AU

(hmm in this case... it is more like a historical ID)

Hmmm I just loved the idea of a noble Eddie and Richie is working in the stables for Eddie’s family.

Eddie loves to sneak out. It is there favourite thing to chill on the hay.

@reddieweek​

(sketch below the cut)

[eddieeatsass]

Reddie Regency AU: Edward Kaspbrak was born into wealth, providing him with everything he could have ever wanted and all the security he would need to be successful in 19th century Britain. He hasn’t been happy in a long time.

Richard Tozier is the son of a shoe shiner and a scullery maid, set up to continue a life of poverty just like his parents. Society looks down upon him, assuming his worth based on his status. He finds happiness in everything he does.

When Richie is hired as one of the Kaspbrak’s domestic servants, he doesn’t expect much. It’s a lowly job he takes only to make money as he tries to figure out how to evade his reputation as an impoverished man and pursue an education. However, when he meets the sole heir of the household, Eddie: a young man whose disposition does not reflect his surroundings, Richie makes it his purpose to show Eddie what wonders life has to offer. (Posted for Day 2 of @reddieweek using the prompt: Regency AU)