East River Pipe 'Mel'
About this episode
This episode celebrates the 30th anniversary of East River Pipe's album 'Mel' with insights from Barbara Powers about its recording and release.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of 'Mel.' The beloved and long out-of-print East River Pipe album — F.M. Cornog's second on Merge Records — was announced late last year as Merge's first entry in Secretly Distribution's Secretly Society Record Club, the first time 'Mel' would be made available on the format since its original issue in 1996. The reissue, which features new liner notes by Barbara Powers and serves as the definitive edition of 'Mel,' uniting the album with songs that were once exclusive to US and UK versions of the CD, sold out immediately. Today, that edition of the album is available for digital purchase via the Merge Records webstore and East River Pipe's Bandcamp page. To further celebrate the occasion, Secretly Group has released a new episode of their Secretly Society podcast, featuring Powers' reminiscence of the time during which 'Mel' was recorded and released. Like all of East River Pipe's output, 'Mel' was written, performed, recorded, and mixed by F.M. Cornog on a Tascam 388 mini-studio at his home, which was then a small apartment in Astoria, Queens. Within that space, he conjures nothing less than the fullness of life beyond it, the characters and…
People in this episode
Guest: Barbara Powers
Topics covered
- 30th anniversary
- album reissue
- indie pop
- music history
- recording process
- New York City
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Merge Records, Secretly Group, The New York Times
Books & works: 'Mel', East River Pipe
Places: Astoria, Queens
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