Shallow North Dakota’s debut full-length album Auto Body Crusher was the culmination of three years of developing their band and sound through performing as many shows as possible. The album was mixed in Los Angeles by Joe Barresi (Jesus Lizard, The Melvins, Queens of the Stone Age) and was comprised of multiple recording sessions from Signal to Noise, Metalworks, and a range of other studios and spaces the band were able to access at the time. In the words of guitarist Dan Dunham, “Tony and I arrived at Union Station at 8:30 AM after two and a half days on the train in coach. Choppers were flying overhead covering the OJ trial down the street; we had arrived in Los Angeles. Our friend, Mark DiPietro, met us at the station and drove us to Mama Jo’s studio at 8321 North Lankershim, North Hollywood. We met Joe and the studio assistant, Tim, and started the mix down straight away. Mark hung with us over the five days of mix downs. We dubbed cassettes to check mixes. His car became a second listening area. We realized that if the rear-view mirror in his car vibrated on playback, we were very close on a final mix. Joe was open to any ideas we had regarding a song/mix and we collaborated using multiple source formats, two inch tape, cassette, DAT, as well as 1/4 inch tape loops to achieve what we were hearing in our heads. All final mixes from these sessions were mixed to 1/4-inch tape. Joe cut and spliced tape to edit our album sequence together during the final hours we had in the studio, and that’s what is presented here: our original intended album sequence as it was then, remastered from the original tapes.”
