Steve Salett and Lauren Balthrop cowrote the song that is featured in the new ad for Match.com

The Gray Goods, of 1928 Recordings, recorded and mixed 3 songs with Jim.  Soon to be released!  www.myspace.com/graygoods
<— also check his photo out from the roof our our studio building!  woo!

Michael Shannon, having recently received an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in his work in Revolutionary Road, has also been recording a new record with the band Corporal and is currently mixing it with Jim at Saltlands.

Nate Martinez worked with Bryan drumming and Jim engineering to put down drums on Nate’s new solo record. Bryan’s feel of rhythm is a valuable entity and fit perfectly with Nate’s songs, and thus took the songs one gorgeous step further to completion. After additional tracking and mixing, hopefully we’re hear it out this Spring!

The Robbers on High Street are currently recording at the studio.  They are the first band to record fully analog at Saltlands.  We’re using a Tascam MS16, a machine notorious for it’s “tape” character. They are tracking with guest engineer Matt Shane, and Jim and Aaron are supporting the endeavor.  We are also video documenting this session as a sort of celebration of Saltlands going analog.  This video should be up on the site soon after the session completes next week.  Check back!

The Present, the New York band of Rusty Santos, Mina, and Jesse Lee, recorded at Saltlands for a week with Jim.  They are known for having an organic wall of sound produced with various types of loops and samples, and for venturing beyond any predictable format or song structures.  Their resent records “The Way we Are” and “The World I See”  have been well received in the world of experimental independent music.  Check them out here… Fader, Pitchfork, MySpace.

The latest addition to the Saltlands guest list is a band from Los Angeles known as “The Softpack” (formerly known as “The Muslims”). Engineered by Eli Janney with Aaron Rutledge assisting, The Softpack recorded their next full length album, bringing along with them a lot of fun and energy to Saltlands Studio. They asked Eli Janney to produce and engineer the record based on knowledge of his previous work with the “Obits” (also previous guests of Saltlands Studio). We are all very excited for the release of their new album.

Talk about hard working guys… “Tuppy the Band” should be in the record books for their intense 21 songs in a day session back in April 2009. With engineer Aaron Rutledge to help facilitate the bold task of tracking so many songs in a day, the band achieved more than they could have expected. They have been back twice now to do overdubs and finish the vocal tracks and we hope they keep coming back. Check them out regularly at Parkside Lounge in Brooklyn. They recently held a benefit show to help save the bar from being evicted and apparently they were successful. How cool is that?

Allie Moss recorded with Jim Smith as engineer, and Sam Kassirer producing.  Allie is touring frequently with Ingrid Michaelson, and came to do two of her own songs with some excellent drumming, ukulele strumming, and bass playing by good friends in brooklyn.   One of the songs was “Melancholy Astranautic Man,” which has received great fan support from her live performances..  Allie has also received much acclaim for her velvety and accurate singing style, which helps her produce performances of her songs that are stunningly clear and mesmerizing.

We had the pleasure of having Andrew Vladeck in the studio recently. He recorded a handful of songs engineered by Dawn Landes (assisted by Aaron Rutledge). Andrew is known for his creative use of the banjo and stomp box percussion. Dawn Landes used this opportunity to really dive deep in order to achieve a unique and powerful banjo sound for Andrew, and the result definitely reflects that motive. Enjoy the video above which contains a combination of shots taken in the studio as well as from a recent live performance.