During the months of the pandemic when playing live wasn’t an option for bands, Seattle post-hardcore trio, Fixtures—Jeff Bartlett (bass), Matt Maisano (drums), Kyle Shaffer (guitar/vocals)—had the clever idea to film a “concert” of a recording session at a notable local studio. In doing so, they were able to kill a few birds with one stone, so to speak: they could offer fans a “live” performance, woodshed some new material and finally put together a live release, featuring both new tracks (“All Gone Dark” and “Push Pull”) as well as a couple tunes from their self-released debut, Life in Retreat (“In the Face Of” and “Never Rest”). This is how they came to create Live at Robert Lang Studios.
Here’s what Kyle Shaffer had to say about the live EP:
“We were interested in shooting a live session when shows were a little more sporadic here in Seattle due to COVID restrictions. We got in touch with our friend Jesse Field, who is a producer and engineer at Robert Lang Studios, about the project and he was excited and made everything work really effortlessly. We’re super happy with the final recording, and we’re even more excited to debut two unreleased songs to give folks a little taste of what our next record will sound like.
The live room at Robert Lang Studios is kind of legendary. It’s all exposed rock and marble and it feels like it shouldn’t work for capturing studio-quality sounds—like sound would be bouncing everywhere causing crazy reverberations. But as soon as our drummer Matt started warming up in the room we knew we’d found the perfect spot. We feel really lucky that we were able to capture our live sound in that space, and we hope people dig the new songs, as well as the more “live” feel of the songs from our previous record, Life In Retreat.”
