Twenty-twenty-one was undoubtedly the year of Seth Manchester. The producer and sound engineer recorded and mixed more than 30 albums at his studio, Machines with Magnets, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Body, BIG/BRAVE, Hide, Lingua Ignota, and Full of Hell are just a few of the bands that have released an album in the past 12 months that was recorded at Machines with Magnets, joining a long list of bands Manchester has worked with over the past 20 years.
“I grew up in a recording studio,” Manchester says. “When I was a kid, I had a four-track and recorded people in my parent’s basement, like my friend’s bands, and I never really got another job. I was 20 when I met Keith Souza and I started working with Keith in 2003 as an assistant, we kind of became collaborators and we would just work on stuff together. Keith started it in 1999, in a different location—it was much smaller, all analogue, kind of a DIY setup. When we moved to the Pawtucket studio, we kind of stepped it up, and made it more of a commercial studio. I became the Pro Tools guy, and because of that, it cemented me a position at the studio. That was my in-road.”
This new version of Machines with Magnets opened in 2006, where it still is today. The building houses not only a full-fledged recording studio, but an art gallery and a performance space, complete with a full bar.
“The place is kind of like a community space, we have a venue, and a bar and a gallery—it’s been a big part of the Providence community for some time,” Manchester explains. “Providence has historically been renowned for having a lot of DIY spaces, like warehouse spaces that come and go.”
Manchester has always been part of the Providence music scene. “I grew up 30 minutes outside Providence. In the late ‘90s, early 2000s, there was a very prominent noise rock scene. It all kind of split out from this place called Fort Thunder where the Lightning Bolt guys lived in the ‘90s. And I think around that time, in 2001 maybe, The Body had just moved to Providence and I met Lee and Chip maybe in around 2003, and would go to shows they were playing.”
“Providence music probably influenced me more than other cities. It’s funny how I’ve never really been a metal person even though I tend to record a lot of metal, I grew up going to these weirdo noise, art rock shows, not really metal shows—the thing about Providence is that you had bands like Dropdead that would be on a bill with a band like Lightning Bolt, it would just be a different mix.”
“I would be bored if I just sat there and did the same old thing all the time, for every project I try to approach something differently,” Manchester says. “Machines with Magnets historically was an analog studio and then when we transitioned it changed, but it still is a very hybrid set up. I’m always interested in pushing pieces of equipment and pushing space, in really fucked up ways, I’m trying to always overdrive all my gears to see how it sounds, just try stuff, and it’s more fun to me to do that in the outside tactile world than it is to do in a computer, but sometimes I am also very interested in emerging technology.”
During his 20-year career, many artists have decided to return to work with Manchester for his unusual approach and the friendship that he is keen to create.
“It’s about building communities,” he says. “I mean there’s so many weird, interconnected relationships. Most of the people I work with, especially these days, are my friends, or have become my friends through the record-making process, and I think that’s often why people come back to make their second record, or their third record. I keep working with people who are nice, inspire me, respect my ideas. If people are nice to you, respect you and what you are doing, that’s what really matters to me.”
Check out Full of Hell’s live set at Machines with Magnets from 2021 here:
For more from Seth Manchester and Machines with Magnets, find them on Facebook, Instagram, and their official website.
Photo courtesy of Seth Manchester and Machines with Magnets
