I was in the slightly cooler climes of Pitchfork, Illinois this past weekend and didn’t make it to Siren Festival, but NYC Taper ably recorded Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks’ Real Emotional Trash-heavy set on Saturday, so I’ve been able to listen to that, minus extreme heat or the smell of funnel cake (though you do pickup the Cyclone). The field recording’s details:

We recorded from the ground in front and left of the soundboard. The placement was problematic because of the Cyclone, but our hyper-directional microphones really proved their worth as the recording is not marred by the rumbling ride and screaming patrons. During quiet moments and in between songs, the cyclone provided “local color”, during the normal volume of the songs, the noise can not be heard…

Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Dead Center
Front of Board — Approximately 100 Feet from Stage

Neumann KM-150′s (AK-50 Hypercardiod Capsules) > Monster XLR cables > Apogee Minime > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge 8.0 (set fades, slight level boost, resample 16/44) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Also interesting: Malkmus & Co. played a new, mellow, rangy song called “Astral Facial.”

• Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – “Astral Facial” (Siren Festival 7-19-08)Download

This is what the set looked like:

01 “Baby C’mon”
02 “Gardenia”
03 “Dragonfly Pie”
04 “Jenny and the Ess-Dog”
05 “Phantasies”
06 “Hopscotch Willie”
07 “Elmo Delmo”
08 “Cold Son”
09 “Baltimore”
10 “Astral Facial”
11 “We Can’t Help You”
12 “Real Emotional Trash”
–
14 “All Over Gently’
15 “Pencil Rot”
16 “Two Tickets To Paradise” (Eddie Money)

If you have the patience and bandwidth, you can download it all here (via fluxtumblr).

[Photo of Malkmus @ The Siren Festival 7/19/08 by Kyle Dean Reinford]