Keep in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg - there's enough info and tips on this to fill a book - but don't be afraid to learn how to do this yourself - you need this knowledge! Here's how it works: Your recordings will sound better (than if you left it uncalibrated for years!) and you won't be afraid to try new tape formulations or work on tapes from other studios. If you're an engineer working with analog tape decks, you should know how to set decks up for different operating levels, bias for varying brands and formulations of tape, and how to calibrate your deck for a flat EQ response. So if the Brit Awards jury are again going to give next year’s Best Male Solo Artist gong to a man most of the country haven’t heard of, going by the mighty ‘Tape Deck Heart’, Frank must be a shoo-in.Bias and equalization you've probably heard and used the terms for years, possibly without really understanding their effect on the quality of your recordings. Despite recording in the States, he hasn’t forsaken his British roots. Borrowing heavily from the traditional ‘The Banks Of Sweet Primroses’ by way of Billy Bragg’s 1988 a capella ‘Tender Comrade’, Frank takes us on an aural trip to his ex-lover’s window, down to the muddy Thames from Highgate Hill and onward to the Isle Of Dogs. It’s not until the end of the album and the mournful, mesmerising ‘Broken Piano’ that we finally hear Frank rhapsodising about his beloved England, mixing native pride with lovelorn anguish. Live music gets another shout-out via a eulogy for London’s late, lamented Astoria in the heavy-duty Foo Fighters-meets-Fairport Convention triumph of ‘Polaroid Picture’. Romantic woes are briefly swept aside for the genre-hopping stomp of ‘Four Simple Words’, which celebrates the majesty of a DIY punk-rock gig, Frank digging at music made by “ lacklustre scenesters from Shoreditch“. From the record’s artwork – an old-school design by one of Frank’s favourite tattoo artists, Florida-based Heather Ann Law – to the lyrical references concerning the etchings that cover his own body, this isn’t just about body modification, but the marks and scars each of us carry, as well as Frank’s proud counter-cultural allegiances.
TAPEDECK PUNK SKIN
Like Tom Waits and The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon before him, Frank’s obsession with ink is more than just skin deep. It’s on ‘Tell Tale Signs’ as well as the jangling ‘Losing Days’ that the record’s recurring motif of tattoos is strongest. He might be describing the cuts on his arms, but it’s cushioned by music that draws on the dreaminess of early Ryan Adams. Instead he softens the blow of such stark lyrics with melody.
Frank isn’t one for making things more palatable with mawkish metaphors. Starting with Frank boldly naming the woman who ripped his heart out and then trampled on it in steel toe-capped DMs (“ goddamnit, Amy“, he spits), the latter song then dives into graphic stories of teenage self-harm with his dad’s razor. It feels like an end-of-the-century party.” Which it does, right up until the ache of ‘Good & Gone’ and the harrowing ‘Tell Tale Signs’. “I want it to feel like The Last Waltz soundtrack,” Frank told NME of the record, aligning the album with the buoyant soundtrack from folk-rock pioneers The Band’s triumphant last show. Frank might have donned a pair of rather rose-tinted glasses for this out-and-out love song, but they don’t half suit him. Outrageously uplifting despite its morose subject matter, it paves the way for ‘The Way I Tend To Be’.
TAPEDECK PUNK FULL
Backed by the persistent blast of a full band teeming with jubilant piano, it makes for a perky anthem for the freshly dumped. Opener ‘Recovery’ is a classic ‘I’m going to get over you’ statement of intent, from the cider-drenched nights spent “ blacking in and out in a strange flat in east London” through to some kind of redemption (“ one day this will all be over“). An intensely personal record, the process of listening to the dozen tracks here is as intimate – and sometimes as uncomfortable – as reading pages ripped straight from Frank’s diary. “It’s a record about ‘What do you do when something that was supposed to be perfect comes to its natural end?'” The steadfastly English songsman might not have gone into the gory minutiae of said relationship breakdown then, but ‘Tape Deck Heart’ is all about the heart-wrenching details. “Without going into details, it’s kind of ended up being a break-up record,” he told us at Eldorado Recording Studio of the follow-up to 2011’s reflectively patriotic ‘England Keep My Bones’. Last autumn, Frank Turner let NME into the suburban Los Angeles studio where he was laying down his fifth solo album.
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