Recording and mixing Elana Stone

At the end of 2023, Elana Stone asked to record a single, Eyes with myself at Stranded Studios in Bellambi.

Over a high paced session, Elana laid down an assortment of haunting keys, synths, vocals, harmonies and even great vintage drum machine parts. She was a delight to work with, effortlessly jumping from layer to layer, capturing the sound that was in her head.

Early 2024 I was in the mix process, the track was shaping up beautifully with a misty Twin Peaks 80s favour. Elana, however, could hear the possibility of the second half of the track lifting with a layer of some organic drums and bass. Elana’s longtime collaborator, Kieran Parker, quickly recorded some great new bass and drum layers, and then came the tricky job of finding space for two bass lines and drum parts.

Production-wise, we got there with some aggressive EQ shaping, sidechain compression and more conceptually, really allowing each of the basses and drums to have a unique character. The new drums eventually adopted a quite psychedelic layer. It was fun to be treating a whole drum bus with flangers, phasers and over-the-top psychedelic treatments in generally.

The result is below

Come the release of the track within an album setting, it was amazing to find myself in the album credits alongside a host of my favourite Sydney-based engineers and producers, such as Tony Buchen, Antonia Gauci and Richie Belkner, as well as a gun line up of musicians, including Josh Pyke, Luke Moseley, Justing Stanley, Zoe Hauptmann, and Keiran and Lachlan Parker.

Below are a few images from the session. Elana’s album tour dates are also below.