Skallander
Skallander is a New Zealand band made up of electronic musician Bevan Smith and jazz composer Matthew Mitchell. They have been making music under the moniker since 2000. According to Smith, the name is "a play on the Russian word for ‘cosmonaut suit’. Which is skaffander? I think. Mitch's ex-partner is half-Russian, half-Hungarian." Musical style and recording process Smith notes that due to Mitchel's jazz school background, Skallander's songs are recorded in an unconventional style. All the "song parts" (that is, guitars and vocals) are recorded in one take. They are then all timestamped 3–6 minutes apart (depending on song length). Mitchell improvises all the played parts on every song, including a substantial part of the lyrics. Their second album (although released after the third album) was written wrote and recorded in under a week with one microphone, a sm57, used for everything, and then mixed in under a week. The audio was then run through a hi-end Neve compressor at Radio New Zealand National. Their third album took substantially longer, with the pair working on it for about 6–8 months. The mixes are very dense, with typically about 20–30 vocals layers per track. Critical reception The Dominion Post reviewer