Musically, New York City has experienced a creative renaissance over the past few years, with the bands creating some of the most challenging, interesting and exciting music heard since the heyday of CBGB’s. Paul Mahajan has been behind the board to capture the sounds and energy of much of this incredibly fertile scene. Some of his work includes the incredible Yeah Yeah Yeah’s album, Fever To Tell (Interscope), as well as the prior EP, Machine. He recorded and mixed the Liars tracks on their split EP with Oneida (Arena Rock), as well as the album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and the Young Liars EP (Touch and Go/ 4AD), by the un-categorizable and amazing TV on the Radio.
Paul grew up in the suburbs of the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area. He began playing music as a teenager, going on to study music theory. He then took recording classes at Omega Studios (a studio/school in the Washington, D.C. area.) After finishing recording classes, he did brief stints as an intern and staff assistant at Omega.
Tiring of the politics of a corporate studio, Paul left for a job in a music store, and began doing freelance recording at various small studios. While working at the music store, he had the good fortune of meeting one of the customers, David Andrew Sitek, and the two quickly found a synergy that led to their work with Love Life (who later evolved into Celebration). After a move to Williamsburg, they worked together on releases by Brooklyn’s best: the Yeah’s, Liars, and Dave’s own band, TV on the Radio. Their collaboration has to date culminated in the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album Fever to Tell.
Paul has quickly obtained a reputation for being able to get amazing sounds to tape (or disc), whether it be the powerful and expressive vocals of Karen O (Yeah’s) and Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio), Nick Zinner’s (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) and Sitek’s guitars, or the varied sounds (flute, sax, etc.) found on TV on the Radio’s recordings. He is equally adept at mixing the minimalist punk-folk-blues of Entrance (Tiger Style), as well as the complex array of sounds found on TV on the Radio’s releases. Paul plays guitar, bass, piano, works with pro-tools, and sets up guitars and basses (action and intonation). He has helped put together systems for home recordings for varied budget levels. He is at home recording in an apartment or a house (as was done with Young Liars and the second Liars album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, for Mute), or a proper studio like Headgear in Williamsburg, where Paul recorded and co-mixed the full-length TV on the Radio album and where he worked on “Machine” and recorded Fever To Tell.
Paul continues to develop NYC’s varied young bands. He mixed the critically acclaimed debut album by Essie Jain, We Made This Ourselves for Ba Da Bing! He recorded The National’s introspectively pastoral and rocking Alligator for Beggars Banquet, which has garnered great press and worldwide sales. He recorded and mixed a project by Vic Thrill (led by the charismatic Billy Campion, ex-Bogmen). Paul also collaborated with Brooklyn’s Dan Goddard to record his amazing Volunteers project, and he produced noise rockers Abigail Warchild. He took special pleasure in his work with the amazing Japanese prog punks, Green Milk From The Planet Orange (Beta-lactam Ring).
More recently, he has formed a partnership with producer/engineer/ musician Mark Ephraim, who has performed in his own band, The Shorebirds, as well as recorded with the likes of Grand Mal, Adam Green and Neckbeard Telecaster. Together, Paul and Mark produced/recorded and mixed the most recent EP’s by Williamsburg darlings Dirty On Purpose. “Audience,” from the Like Bees EP, was featured in a Virgin Mobile TV ad. They also collaborated on the most recent recordings by (anti-) folkie Turner Cody (Boyscout Recordings), Ace Fu’s extreme J.A.C.K. and the unique Wolff (ex-Drums & Tuba). He mixed three songs for Surrounded (One Little Indian), and produced, recorded and mixed the solo debut album by Rey Pila, the alter ego of Diego Solórzano, the frontman for Mexico’s star group, Los Dynamite Paul has also been busy mastering a number of releases, including Dirty on Purpose’s Dead Volcanoes EP, Geezer on Diesel, Wolff, Abigail Warchild, and both the Pocket Re-Mixes and Pocket Singles series, featuring performances by Radiohead, Robyn Hitchcock, Cat Power, Of Montreal, Antony & The Johnsons, Joanna Newsom, etc. Pocket’s track featuring Robyn Hitchcock appeared on an episode of NBC’s Kings.
