Fred Armisen on "100 Sound Effects"

""I feel like they just used to exist more or they were more present. . . . And instead of just, you know, taking out my phone and just recording stuff, I wanted to treat it properly. Like, let me go to a recording studio and really do it. Let me try to mimic some things that I've heard before.""

"The track titles are themselves punch lines: "Guitar Tuned but Still Somehow Out of Tune," "Supportive Booing at a Speech," "Obligatory Applause at a Speech," and "Terrified Audience at an Authoritarian Nation Official Event." Talking about the importance of paying attention to the auditory world, Armisen and Schulman went out to record some classic sounds of New York City-and what they couldn't find they faked."

Fred Armisen has a strong interest in sound, combining his background as a punk musician and a master of accents to produce a new album of sound effects. The album, titled 100 Sound Effects, will be released this month on the indie label Drag City. Armisen pursued studio-quality recordings to recreate and mimic familiar auditory moments rather than relying on casual phone captures. Track titles function as comedic descriptions, including moments like tuned-but-out-of-tune guitars and various audience reactions. Armisen and his collaborator recorded classic New York City sounds in the field and fabricated sounds they could not find. The project emphasizes close attention to the auditory world.

Read at The New Yorker