“One of my earliest musical memories is listening to my mom’s copy of Tapestry on the family record player. I would sit near the speakers in our living room, absorbing Carole King’s mellow alto and mid-register piano chords as California sunlight streamed through the window. On the album cover, King sits in the corner of a window seat in her own sunlit room, looking relaxed, her guard down. I would stare at the cover as I listened, feeling a warm, intimate connection with the songs and the person singing them.”
“That intimacy came from King’s powerful songs and performances, for sure, but also from the experience of playing the record itself. Taking the album out of its sleeve, placing it onto the turntable, and lowering the needle into the groove: each action required a physical engagement, a commitment of time, energy and attention that strengthened my connection to the music. The ritual of playing made me more of an accomplice, an active as opposed to a passive listener.
Record playing also adds to a sense of intimacy to music through the way the system is designed, how the sound-making mechanisms are exposed to the listener. The physical patterns of the sounds are visible as grooves. You can watch the needle move as it translates the grooves into vibrations. Seeing how the sound is created brings the listener closer to the music literally and emotionally land deepens a sense of its magic and mystery.
How do the vibrations picked up by the needle transport us into a room with The Beatles or Carole King? How do the grooves we see in front of us translate into so much joy, excitement and nostalgia? We can see and understand what is happening intellectually, but we can’t reconcile it with the magnitude of the emotional changes it creates within us.
When I started working on my album, I thought I would record some home demos before bringing them into a studio to record “properly.” What I found instead was that the intimate nature of the songs–about feeling and losing closeness–was well served by the recordings I was making in my own living room.
Free from the pressures of a studio clock and in a relaxed and intimate space, I was able to get vocal takes that sounded like I was talking/singing directly to the person in the songs. I was able to capture guitar and piano performances with just the right type of expression and sound.
Intimacy became the over-riding principle in recording: everything had to contribute to a sense of exposing a highly vulnerable part of myself. As with the records I listened to growing up, I wanted to create an intimate connection with my listeners, from my living room into their ears. Because however music is played, that connection is what we are looking for.
—Gaby Alter
Yes Gabriel’s self-titled EP is in stores now.
