Summary: Collaborations: Creative partnerships in music | Becky Shepard The collaboration between the artist of popular music and the studio recordist is a relationship that is integral to the development of recorded sound as artistry, however there are different degrees within which this collaboration operates. The original role of the studio producer as A&R man for example, involved the collaboration between a recording artist and a producer that was predominately based on administration, finances and logistics. Alternately, the producer as autonomous orchestrator involves the governance of the producer over the entire recording process, from the early stages of pre-production and arrangement, to the tracking and mixing process. Finally there is the role of the producer as collaborator, or techno-musical advisor. In this context the producer works closely alongside the recording artist throughout the production process as a means of realising an appropriate recorded sonic aesthetic. In this paper I will examine the last of these examples and highlight how the creative collaboration between the recording artist and the studio producer is the most common mode of operation for the production of contemporary rock music, despite such collaborations often remaining unacknowledged in album linear notes and album promotions . I will focus on two contemporary examples of this collaborative relationship, and examine the extent to which the production process is conceptualised as recorded sound by the artists/performer, but is realised via the techno-musical crafting of the song, the arrangement and the track, by the producer in the recording studio. I argue therefore that the collaborative role between the studio producer and the artist/performer, works like a conduit of ideas, whereby the producer facilitates the sonic vision of the recording artist, via his/her techno-musicality within the recording studio environment. I will examine the successfully collaborative relationship between producer Steve Albini, and American indie artists Low. I will demonstrate how Albini’s preference for live tracking and distant microphone techniques directly complements, captures and crafts the sonic aesthetic of close harmonies, cyclical melodic lines, and the raw intimacy of the sound of the ‘room’ in Low’s first LP, Things We Lost In The Fire (2001). Secondly, I will briefly demonstrate how Canadian producer Peter Moore , realised a similar, intimate, lo-fi live ambience to the recording of American country/folk rock artists The Cowboy Junkies second LP The Trinity Session (1988). I will argue that both these albums and the collaborative role of the studio producer and the recording artist, continues to influence the live, intimate lo-fi recording techniques that characterise the recorded sound of successful contemporary alternative country artists such as Gillian Welch, and My Morning Jacket. These types of collaborations demonstrate two examples of the valorisation of the studio producer as a facilitator of the recording process, and more importantly as an orchestator of an artists’ recorded sonic aesthetic.
