Neko Case is here working on her new one. Kelly Hogan just reminded us how backup vocals are done…

The Decemberists were in recently recording some music to accompany the upcoming Portland-centric Simpsons episode that features them.

Fleet Foxes‘ Robin Pecknold and Morgan Henderson along with amazing drummer Neal Morgan were just here working on a some new material for a soundtrack.

Congratulations to the Decemberists and My Morning Jacket for their Grammy nominations!

We had a great time this weekend. T Bone Burnett was in the house with his engineer Mike Piersante doing a couple of tracks with the Decemberists. One for the upcoming Chieftans record and another for the soundtrack to upcoming film “The Hunger Games”.

In the 11 months since I have last updated this news page a lot has happened in my neck of the woods. My son Tennessee was born 10 months ago and I have managed to make a few records I’m really proud to have been part of since his birth. The Decemberists record “The King is Dead” debuted at #1 which was a fun surprize to all of us. I got to work with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on that one, a couple of folks I have long admired. Once that was done I headed South to Louisville, KY and set up shop in an old church with My Morning Jacket. Much of that record was tracked with everybody playing live in a huge room together. The recording gear was in the same room and bleed was king. The final phase happened in Nashville at Blackbird Studio. The album is called “Circuital” and is set to be released in late May or early June. The R.E.M. record that I tracked demos for comes out next week. Also since I last wrote I mixed a John Wesley Harding record, a Jenny Scheinman record with Nels Cline, Todd Sickafoose and Jim Black, a Cataldo record and a collaborative record between Mirah, Thao and TuneYards. We started tracking a new Brian Blade Fellowship record that will be continued soon. We also made some headway on a new Floratone record which features Bill Frisell, Matt Chamberlain, Jon Brion, Mike Elizondo, Eyvind Kang and Ron Miles. Mixing for that record begins next week.

Tuesday is the release of the debut record from Black Prarie on Sugar Hill Records. It’s an all acoustic affair with a healthy dose of spook sprinkled about. NPR is streaming the album in advance here. I’m just back from Nashville where we tracked a new record for banjo player/songtress Abigail Washburn. The tracking was finished today in Portland and the mixing shall commence immediately. We’ve had many great contributions from folks like Viktor Krauss, Kai Welch, Bill Frisell, Tim O Brien, Edgar Meyer, Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket), Old Crow Medicine show folks, Wu Fei, Jeremy Kittell, Nathaniel Smith and on and on. My goal is to get the mixing done before I become a papa which could be any day now. After a week or 2 with the baby we jump right into a new Decemberists record which we’ll be recording out in the country outside of Portland in a barn that we are converting into a studio just for this record. I’m looking forward to Peter Buck’s guest appearance on a couple of songs.