Inside ATA Records

Here at ATA Records we pride ourselves on the methods that we have chosen to make our music, mainly recording analog to tape and pressing up vinyl. Not only are we recording to tape we are using the equipment that sonically best represents the style of music we are recording. This involves a lot of vintage recording equipment and with that comes many hurdles. The pitfalls of such an endeavour on an almost non-existent budget have, at times, almost got the better of us and we find ourselves weighing up dedication to the process against actually just getting music made....

The purpose of these blog posts was to offer some insight into how we do things at ATA records. Sometimes this will take the form of something technical, like the equipment we use or a particular mic’ing technique, and sometimes it might be more conceptual or about the process of recording itself. This one is more on the conceptual side of things.  We’ve got an album coming out soon that I am very pleased about. Across the board I feel like we have, for the first time, got a lot of it right. From the recording to the artwork, conception...

The Lewis Express had a life way before our label, ATA Records, was printing discs. I think the first rumblings of the band were around 2004 when drummer Sam Hobbs and I, accompanied a very young pianist, Bill Laurence, in one of his degree examinations. My memory is slightly hazy for the material. I think we improvised some swinging jazz and possibly some reggae-influenced stuff, but I do remember that we kicked the doors off the sucker! Bill's examiners did not know what hit them as he was on a classical music degree.  It was a few years after this...

Can you record a big band in a garage? Yes. All live? Yes. Is that not a lot of people in quite a small space? Yes, 3 trumpets/flugels, 4 trombones, 4 saxophones/flutes, bass, drums and keyboards.  What about separation? F*%k separation.  Ok, I am not being strictly truthful about the garage bit, it is actually three single car garages. Am I being truthful about the separation bit? Kind of, but I will get to that bit a little later on.  ATA Records has its own studio for the production of our music. After many years of looking for the right...

Abstract Orchestra have been playing their particular brand of instrumental live hip-hop since 2011, but it was their 2017 debut 'Dilla' that helped to catapult them into the consciousness of music fans across the world. Initially taking their lead from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s orchestral interpretations of J Dilla, they quickly found their own sound: a heady brew of the big band arrangements of Gil Evans & Bob Brookmeyer, the film scores and large scale production work of Quincy Jones & David Axelrod and the rhythms of Madlib & Dilla.  It’s within this musical landscape that Bandleader and Arranger Rob Mitchell firmly...