12. The Velvet UndergroundWhite Light / White Heat
Again, it’s a thing that you can come back to endlessly and be like, ‘This relates to what I’m into right now.’ It’s not like I built all of my musical tastes on White Light/White Heat consciously, but I heard that and it lit up the blueprint. It hits so many things. There’s some records that have really long tracks that just keep going and going; like that Alan Silva Seasons triple LP on BYG, that’s another one of the Baker’s Extra Dozen. It’s like, how can people fit this much noise and beauty and intensity on a record? It’s like a crowning achievement of microphones and insanity. It has these moments, like on ‘I Heard Her Call My Name’, how loud that guitar break comes in. It’s just wrong from a mix engineer standpoint, but it’s so right. It’s showing what the recorded medium, by breaking a few of the usual practices, can do. Be a little more adventurous and you can find some gold.
