Acoustical
Striptease
Photo and excerpt from an article in The Washington
Times about Pierre Sprey's Mapleshade studio.
Radical recording
studio produces all-natural, bare-essentials music
- By Christine Montgomery - May 6, 1999
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Lisa
Williams is not exactly naked. In fact, she's wearing a T-shirt,
jeans and a clunky pair of black ankle boots.
With
a guitar across her thighs, she sits on a stool in the middle
of Mr. Sprey's foyer -- which doubles as the recording studio
for singers.
Colorful posters of musicians who have recorded here jump
out in contrast to the dingy white walls. The floor is bare
and dusty. Ribbons of copper wiring hang from the coat rack
instead of coats. The windowsills could use a good dusting.
Mr.
Sprey adjusts Miss Williams' microphone -- an invention of
his that puts a mike the size of a shirt button onto a metal
plate the size of a saucer. Blue molding clay covers the plate's
edges.
"Sharp
edges around a microphone create distortion," Mr. Sprey
explains.
Miss
Williams, 36, is making her second CD, her first under the
Mapleshade label.
"All
right, Lisa, you're on," Mr. Sprey says, crouching in
the hallway off the foyer in a pair of earphones, working
the knobs on the giant reel-to-reel.
What
pours from Miss Williams' vocal chords is rough and smooth
at the same time -- a distinct singing voice full of emotion.
What eventually will come out on her CD will sound the same.
Each catch in her throat will be captured.
"It's
natural," says Miss Williams, who lives in Severn, MD,
"It's like, why cover it up if it's natural?"
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