Gray Areas: Adduci, The Building team for album release show
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Nick Adduci and Anthony LaMarca spent some time together at Peppermint Recording Studio over Christmas break, and they'll share the stage Saturday at Westside Bowl.
LaMarca, a member of The War on Drugs who releases his solo work as The Building, produced Adduci's new album, "Tabula Rasa." He also put out his own recording, "April Fool," earlier this year, and Saturday's event will serve as an album release for both.
Backing them will be Ryan Deaver on guitar, Michael Estok on bass and Dean Anshutz on drums.
"During my set, Anthony's gonna be doing key(board)s, and then during his set, I'll be doing keys. It'll be the same band for both."
"Tabula Rasa" is Adduci's third release recorded at Peppermint, but it's the first one to use an outside producer.
"I'd always admired his work with The Building," Adduci said of LaMarca. "I liked his sound. I like to do as much as I can myself, but if I was going to have someone else produce it, Anthony's the first person I'd call. And I'm glad I did it too, because there's only so much that I could do on my own."
In a separate conversation, LaMarca said, "He's really a super talented guy, especially in the studio. He's very prepared and just works really fast. He'll just do a take of a song and be like, 'All right, that's good. Yeah, let's keep moving.'"
Anshutz, who is a member of Red Wanting Blue and Kid Mammoth, plays drums on "Tabula Rasa," but Adduci handled vocals, harmonica, guitars, bass, piano, organ, keyboards, mandolin and (for the first time) banjo. LaMarca, who played drums on two of Adduci's previous releases, contributed drums and percussion as well as guitar, bass, piano, organ, keyboards, mandolin and lap steel.
"It's probably the best one sound-wise," Adduci said. "(Having a producer) took a lot of the pressure off me, and it just took it in a direction where I might not have taken it myself."
"Tabula Rasa" is available now via streaming, and CDs will be available at the Westside Bowl show, but it also will be his first vinyl release. He spared no expense, which is one of the reasons the vinyl won't be available until fall.
Adduci embraced old-school technology in the studio, recording to tape instead of hard drive, and he's embracing old-school visual elements, such as tip-on construction for the album sleeve. Instead of printing directly on lightweight white cardboard, the front and back cover images are glued onto a sleeve made from heavier cardboard stock.
"Even to get them produced cheaply is still a lot of money, so I figured I might as well just do it all the way, and hopefully that's a selling point," Adduci said. "We spent so much time in the studio making it the best it could possibly be. I just feel like the physical product, vinyl, is the pinnacle, so it should be everything it can be."
LaMarca, who has experimented with different release formats and methods over the years, took the opposite approach with "April Fool." The album is available for streaming, but the only physical versions currently planned are handmade cassettes sold through Bandcamp.
The album was inspired by the sudden death last December of his father-in-law, Carlton A. Sears III, who died just a few weeks after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
"I actually ended up recording in his woodshop because that was the place that we would do stuff together," LaMarca said. "Him and Megan (Elizabeth Sears LaMarca) built a lot of things together there. After he died, it was very hard to go in there. It was as much a processing thing for me as anything else. It felt good to be in that space and to be making something in a way with him."
Most of the eight tracks are just LaMarca's voice and guitar, although Megan LaMarca is featured on cello and "Nothing I Can Do" was co-written with Sandra McCracken, who also contributes vocals to the track.
The dual album release show starts at 8 p.m. Saturday at Westside Bowl, 2617 Mahoning Ave., Youngstown. Tickets are $5 in advance through Eventbrite and $15 at the door.
Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.