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"As a band we truly see you as both an ally and like minded person that understands our approach and advocates for us to fulfill our vision."
— Joe Black, Bone Haus

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Hi! My name is Jamie. I produce and mix and master records.

I focus on working with artists who are looking to make adventurous, immersive records, particularly with an alternative / independent / DIY sound or approach.

I most often do "additional production and mix" work, in which I take songs that you've taken as far as you can and dramatically signal-boost your vision, helping them be as awesome as I know they can be — including a thrilling and dynamic mix and master.

I also frequently take projects from initial songwriting demos through final masters, helping at each stage of the process. Sometimes I'm just putting a mix on something someone else has recorded. Sometimes I'm mastering someone else's work, and adding my perspective there. Some stuff I do falls somewhere in the middle.

And then some of my work is hazier, almost more in an advisory capacity, where perhaps I help guide the project but don't ever actually touch the audio myself. If you're curious whether my perspective could help your project in some particular way, just ask, I'd love to talk with you about it.

I am specifically interested in amplifying vulnerable voices: female voices, gay voices, queer voices, trans voices, brown voices. If you're in a Mexican lesbian punk band, I very much want to make a record with you. If you're doing something socially conscious, I very much want to make a record with you too. We're in a time where things have gotten dark for some people; my interest lies in using music to shine a light forward out of the darkness.

(If the above describes you, and you have no money but you're dead serious about your music and have some genuinely kickass songs that you've DIY recorded, and you need me to both mix your record and help you figure out the funding for it, please get in touch and we can talk about it.)

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I am interested in making art. And when I say 'art,' I mean as opposed to 'entertainment.'

To put it another way, I am uninterested in making music with commerce in mind, or with the goal of chasing after someone else's style or sound. I'm interested in discovering the next iteration of *your* sound. This is not to say that my work hasn't occasionally seen some success or recognition; it has. But it wasn't what we were aiming at. Inasmuch as any record I make is successful, it's simply because it's good, not because we brought in extra writers or focus-grouped the mixes.

I'm similarly uninterested in music-by-committee, in any of its various manifestations. I prefer to make art directly with artists, without outside influence, with a bare minimum of people in the room, following our hearts and intuition, with the goal being to arrive at something unique, exceptional, and timeless.

My goal with every song I record is to record a version of the song that elicits a response somewhere on a spectrum between deeply emotional and "Holy shit, that's fucking great." Ideally, both.

And then, zoomed out to album view, my goal is to manage the flow of energy through all the songs in a nuanced way, in order to guide the listener through an experiential journey, at the end of which they will be a little different than when they began.

I tend to take chances and push both myself and the music. I've made a lot of records, and I'm always looking to make something that gets me really excited when I listen to it. Something that I haven't heard before.

This is all to say, I don't tend to make ordinary-sounding records. If you want a record that sounds like another record you know, or a record that could be classified as safe or conservative or derivative or predictable in its approach, I'm probably not your person. If on the other hand you would like to push some boundaries, and stretch yourself as an artist, and make a piece of art that's bold and adventurous and great – then I'm very much your person.

I work primarily out of The Department of Energy Management — our residential home studio in Tacoma, Washington. You could come live with us and make a record here! It's wonderful.

That said, because of the collaborative nature of the work I do, and because I work to empower people with DIY recording skills, I tend these days to do most of the records I work on via Dropbox and email. It's a fun, asynchronous way to work, in which each of us can take the time we need to explore ideas; and it allows me to be flexible on budget, which makes it possible for me to work on a lot of records that I wouldn't otherwise be able to.

SOME EXAMPLES OF MY WORK:

There are a few different things to listen to here. First up are some personal favorite songs that I've mixed (and also mostly produced), sampled from a bunch of the records I've made over the last years. Newer stuff first, roughly.

And then below that, because I am always the most interested in crafting a narrative arc at fuller length, I've also included a few favorite full-length records and EPs that I've made over the years in different genres. Enjoy.

(Starting one player will stop any other active player. Left + right arrows = forward / back 10 seconds. You can click or tap in the waveform to navigate around the song.)