Mirror Sound

Prestel is pleased to announce Mirror Sound, a new book by musician and writer Spencer Tweedy, graphic designer Lawrence Azerrad, and photographer Daniel Topete, due October 20 and available for pre-order now. Mirror Sound is a visual portrait that delves into the people and processes behind self-recorded music, showcasing twenty-seven musicians, interviews, studio visits, and more than 150 images, as well as a foreword by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein.

Mirror Sound features some of the biggest names in music today, as well as pioneers of recording: Sharon Van Etten, Laetitia Tamko (Vagabon), Bradford Cox, Suzanne Ciani, Mac DeMarco, the late Emitt Rhodes, Nnamdi, Tune-Yards, and more. It provides a rare look into the private spaces that foster invention – laboratories for challenge, realms of personal exploration, and a spectrum of musicians that thrive within them. Mirror Sound is an examination of creating in isolation, without being alone. Each chapter in the book takes on a specific aspect of self-recording through original interviews with musicians and all new photography – intimate shots of artists recording in living rooms, backyards, and garages. 

“I had been thinking about musicians who self-record, and how their music often has this special sound that seems like it can only come from an artist working in their own space,” says Tweedy. “I’d been self-recording since high school and I love the process so much, but I hadn’t seen many stories about it (even while ‘making-of’ things become more commonplace). So we started running around the country, interviewing and photographing artists who make records at home, on the road, in their bedrooms, in barns.“