Inheritors of James Holden's tip

My interview with James Holden is now online at Cyclic Defrost.

His album The Inheritors is showing up in a lot of 'best of 2013' lists and deservedly so. You can see Holden performing the album live in this video.

It was great learning some of his production techniques, such as layering multiple takes. Holden is also a fan of tape saturation, although he acknowledged that plug-ins were getting better at emulating this distortion. The VST TB Reeelbus was one he liked, I've tried it and it's good but not as nice as UAD's Ampex emulation to my ears but it's good, so I'm hoping to find a use for it -- or it'll become another plug in the long list I already have.

The Magnetic II plug by Nomad (on special this month for a good cause) is another tape type effect I've recently tried and it's good for character but less effective at subtle enhancement, although their COSMOS inflator-style plug is excellent value for money.

P.S. Just read Kate Carr's piece on tape at Cyclic Defrost and like the perspectives on the medium -- as well as liking that Cyclic run pieces like this because I've got an idea for a piece on remixing that I've been trying to get motivated to write.