So generally a day at Looking Glass starts at a reasonable hour. So we might start somewhere around maybe 11 or 12, give or take a little earlier, a little later. Do a bit of recording for about four hours or so. Break for lunch for a couple of hours and then do about four more hours of recording. You know, we walk away feeling like, ‘well we did something and it didn't feel like a chore to do it’.

I find that the barn really favors groups that are  already formed and have some sort of musical rapport together. What's worked the best in the recording residency is to have groups play live and to capture what happens in the space. For the most part, the barn really favors acoustic and semi-acoustic groups. It's an opportunity to really listen to the barn and to listen to space. All of  the sort of environmental sounds. Whether it's the birds, insects and things like that - it just allows a certain level of presence.

I've found bands that just play together in the room end up creating the best recordings. It helps to create a better dynamic sense of how the performance relates to the space and the bar and the space around us, and all of that. There's a really special resonance. I call the bar in the least judgmental space you'll ever make music in. It's a place where you can totally just let your hair down and do your thing.

I mean, it's a rare opportunity to record something and have the opportunity to come back the next day and record some more. You come to the country, it's quiet, it's relaxing. There's a meal ready for you, a really great meal, ready for you at lunch. And then an even better one for dinner. And then it happens the next day. And then another day of it. And then it's quiet, there's a hike to take in the morning, there's all this, it's just a, it's something that I think we don't necessarily all get to experience in our professional recording lives.

Essentially we record for a few days. We'll use the last day for mixing. Bands can pretty much walk away with something that can be mastered and released. I've got a variety of tube, ribbon, condenser microphones. Dynamic microphones. We can basically handle most small ensembles. I record to Pro Tools. You get a copy of the Pro Tools session when you leave. While the barn isn't  isolated from outdoor noises,  hrough close micing, we're able to get pretty isolated sounds.

The recording residency has been this amazing way to meet so many young musicians or younger musicians on the scene. It's been really fun for me to take a sort of mentoring role. I found there's a lot of interest around electroacoustic processing and things like that, so I have a ton of toys and effects up there. I think in general, Looking Glass gives people something to believe in. I wholeheartedly believe in everything that Looking Glass does and what we do there. I'm not sure I even knew it would be as powerful as it has been to me. I just wanted to come and record some things in a barn.

It's pretty incredible  to see what five days or six days or whatever, can do for a group of young people that haven't had much offered to them, you know, in terms of artistic support. So, yeah, there's so much to say about loving, you know, Looking Glass. But I think  generally I've found it's given everyone something to kind of believe in. Yeah, now I'm just like, ‘okay, just got to make it to the summer’.