In November 2014, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan released his 11th album, called 36 Seasons. A lot of people worked on it: soul band The Revelations served as a kind of house backing band for the whole thing. Lil’ Fame from M.O.P. and engineer Daniel Schlett helped produce, and there’s a host of guest vocalists, including the ones on this track: singer Tré Williams, and rappers AZ and Kool G Rap. But the person who put the whole thing together, came up with the idea, and corralled all of these contributors is someone who doesn’t appear on the record. His name is Bob Perry, and his title is A&R, which stands for artist and repertoire. Nowadays, that usually means the person at a record label who acts as a talent scout for new artists, but back in the day, the A&R reps were often responsible for much more. In this episode, Bob Perry talks about how the Ghostface song “The Battlefield” came together, and Revelations guitarist Wes Mingus breaks down how the beat was assembled.

Buy “The Battlefield” on iTunes.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
Other songs in this episode:
The Revelations & Tré Williams – I Forgot to Be Your Lover

M.O.P. – Ante Up

The Revelations – I Love You for All Seasons

The National formed in 1999. They’ve released six albums, and have been nominated for a grammy. Their music is everywhere from Game of Thrones, to Bob’s Burgers, to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2013 they released their sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, which debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts. The band is made up of singer Matt Berninger along with two sets of brothers: guitarists Bryce and Aaron Dessner, who are twins, and Brian and Scott Devendorf, who play drums and bass, respectively. In this episode, Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner break down “Sea of Love,” a song that they co-wrote. You’ll hear how it went from Aaron’s original guitar demo to a densely layered recording with contributions from their bandmates and others, and they’ll talk about how collaboration is an intrinsic part of their process and their band identity.

Buy “Sea of Love” on iTunes.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
Nirvana
Crazy Horse
Jimi Hendrix
Richard Reed Parry
Arcade Fire

Tycho is the project of Scott Hansen, along with guitarist Zac Brown and drummer Rory O’Connor. I spoke with Scott in front of a live audience in San Francisco (thanks to Noise Pop). In this episode, he breaks down the title track from the 2014 Tycho album Awake, including a note he misplayed, and a vocal part you aren’t really supposed to know about.

Buy “Awake” on iTunes.

See some of Scott’s design work for Tycho in this piece for Re-form on Medium.com.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes
The Interpol song that influenced Scott is “PDA.”