Capturing American Patchwork Quartet, Part 2

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Asheville, NC (February 27, 2025)—There were two drum sets brought into the American Patchwork Quartet sessions for their different sounds and moods. Ross found that the drums were an integral part of the sound from the beginning, and the music required fewer cymbals than a jazz drummer might be accustomed to.

“Set one was a more traditional tight drumkit, and the other [Kit 2] was a more loose sound, with a huge drum decay,” Gandhi explains. “I don’t believe there were any cymbals, maybe a dark cymbal here and there. That was for moodier elements. We spent quite a lot of time tuning those drums, making sure we had the right mallets, we had top and bottom tom mics to make sure to capture the decay. The miking was different on those drums, so it made it easier to have the two sets that we could leave up all the time and didn’t have to keep changing it around.”

The miking scheme for those two drum setups included: Kick mics (D12e and U47 FET into dbx 160s); Snare mics Kit 1 (KM84 and SM57 into Empirical Labs Distressors; Snare mics Kit 2 (Shure Unidyne into Distressors; Tom mics Kit 1 (Sennheiser 421s); Tom mics Kit 2 (Beyer M88s); Overhead mics Kit 1 (AEA R88 and 2x AKG C12, depending on the song); Overhead mics Kit 2 (Josephson C617s); Room mics (Coles 4038s into EMI TG12413). All mics went through the studio’s 32-channel Neve 8068 mkII console preamps and EQ.

EMBRACING CHANGES

One of Ross’ favorite tracks ended up being the Skip James’ composition “I’m So Glad,” which Cream popularized in 1966. “We had been playing that song in a much more traditional way,” he recalls, “and the day before we recorded the song, Clarence said, ‘I have an idea. Instead of it being in 4/4, it’s going to be in 15.’ If you listen to that track, it’s deceptively crooked. As if the plate wasn’t already full enough! I was so upset about it, but then I thought, ‘This is the spirit of what this band is—to embrace ideas and try things.’ That’s the thing about working with people like Clarence, Yasushi and Falu; they’re going to challenge you. It’s so much cooler now than the way we were doing it before—and it makes it so much more unique to us.”

Another of Ross’ favorites is “The Devil’s Nine.” Falu spoke about how she brought the Indian rhythm called Chakradhar to that song, a cycle that repeats three times, the last of which ends on a downbeat. As with all the unconventional choices, it was at first an experiment. Many were tried and tossed, while others, like “The Devil’s Nine,” were kept.

“Leaving space” was a common thread that both Ross and Gandhi talked about throughout the production. Space was crucial in attaining their sound, Gandhi says, because the four of them were bringing such unique and different elements and training to the table, sometimes even intentionally clashing with one another.

“What Yasushi wanted to do on the bass was not at all where Clarence’s instincts were going,” Gandhi says, citing one example. “Either I could rein one of them in, or I could say, ‘Okay, do what you want to do, but leave a little bit of space for each other.’”

Gandhi describes it as a dance, where you are learning the push and pull and give and take within the musical experience. There was an abundance of piling into the control room to listen back for reference, she says, and it was a learning experience for all, even just navigating the language, musical terms and simple communication.

ADDING A BIT OF NASHVILLE

The mix was done at Forty-One Fifteen Studios in Nashville over the course of several months, with the band weighing in remotely. Gandhi mixed in Steinberg Cubase, with an analog 2-bus. Her sonic Northern Star for the mix, she says, was Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball, but initially that did not help her pinpoint their vision due to that album’s own sonic diversity. After some back and forth, they were able to close in on the track “Where Will I Be” from the Harris album as a guide.

“They were like, ‘We like where the vocals sit, we like the overall EQ, we like the grittiness, the roundness,’ et cetera, and all four of them agreed, whereas I couldn’t get all four of them to agree on anything else,” Gandhi says. “That was really helpful for me.”

Ross says the aesthetic they were pursuing was the feeling of a “warm bath,” a lushness and an Asheville vibe.

For Falu, it was about emotions: “Feelings are what we have captured in this folk album. Feelings are human and universal. When you focus on our universal strength, everything comes together. Instead of looking at our differences, we chose to look at our strengths and our uniqueness and bonds that bind us as human beings.”