Taylor Swift’s Recording Engineer Praises Superstar Singer’s “One of a Kind” Work Ethic, Calls Rerecords “An Incredible Engineering Challenge”
The nonprofit We Are Moving the Needle presented the Resonator Awards on Tuesday night, an inaugural celebration designed to spotlight women in the music business in a push for creating a more inclusive industry. Naturally, the biggest name in the game received a shout-out from the podium.
Two of Taylor Swift’s close collaborators — producer Jack Antonoff and mixer and recording engineer Laura Sisk — hit the stage inside Beauty & Essex in Hollywood. Antonoff had the honor of presenting the Exceptional Ears Award to Sisk, a three-time Grammy winner who has also worked with Lana Del Rey, Lorde, St. Vincent and Florence + the Machine.
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Antonoff kicked off his tribute by detailing that he’s known Sisk for more than a decade. “She’s absolutely fucking incredible,” said Antonoff, one of two speakers from the podium who noted how loudly distracting the event’s kitchen staff was during the program. “I met Laura 12 or 13 years ago, and I found one of the greatest relationships in my life, one that I never thought I’d find, and one that very few people are as lucky as I am to do what we do. We hear the same shit, and she just gets it. She’s never made a sound, she’s never put a plug-in on, she’s never mixed something, she’s never panned something, she’s never recorded something that did that thing — that feeling where you’re like, what the fuck are you thinking?”
He said he tried to find the right words to honor her and “sonic partner” sounded right. So did this: “Her opinion means more to me than anything. She’s my favorite engineer and mixer of all time. She is very low-profile. But I’ve heard her say some of the shittiest things to some of the most important artists who’ve ever existed.”
In accepting the honor, Sisk recalled how she was a “shy kid until I stumbled into my middle school’s band room.” There, at the Marin School of the Arts and Technology, she found friends, a second home and, “while I didn’t know it at the time,” a career.
She then returned the favor to Antonoff and praised him as “one of the kindest and most caring people I know” and “one of the most wildly talented.” She recalled how they were in the studio earlier in the day on Tuesday (“should we go back tonight?” she asked), and cited studio albums, film soundtracks and recording for his band Bleachers on a city bus from New York to New Jersey as some of the projects they’ve done with each other.
Sisk then turned her attention to Swift, with whom she has collaborated on the superstar singer’s albums dating back to 1989. Since then, they worked on Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights. They then went on to sync up on Swift’s record-shattering rereleases, including Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), collaborations Sisk noted.
“Taylor Swift, I want to thank you so much for the endless inspiration. She’s truly one of a kind in her work ethic and getting to do so many different kinds of projects with her has made me grow so much as an engineer. I want to mention the rerecords specifically as an incredible engineering challenge, and an intellectual and technical and creative pursuit,” Sisk said. “It’s been so exciting and it has been exercising a completely different part of my brain.”
Sisk continued: “Listening to all the work we’ve put out at the stadium full of people has been so special.” She then thanked Del Rey for “her endless experimentation in the studio, her excitement and her creativity. She’s always pushing for a new sound and it’s just an incredible and inspiring process to be a part of. The way she’s believed in me and supported me has always been something I’ve held close.”
That spirit of selflessness, sisterhood and camaraderie infused the entire evening as the Resonator Awards saw honors doled out to Alanis Morissette (Luminary of the Year); producer, mixer and recording engineer Catherine Marks (Powerhouse of the Year); artist, songwriter, producer/engineer Caroline Polachek (Golden Trifecta Award); artist, songwriter and producer Corinne Bailey Rae (Harmonizer Award); producer, instrumentalist and songwriter Jennifer Decilveo (All-Star Award); Mom + Pop Music founder Michael Goldstone (Transformer Award); and Dolby Labs head of music industry relations Christine Thomas (Equalizer Award). Hosted by music journalist Jenny Eliscu, the event also featured performances by Sasami, Empress Of and Remi Wolf, with the latter feting Morissette with a rousing rendition of her global hit “Hand in My Pocket.”
The Resonator Awards originated from an idea by Emily Lazar, the CEO and chief mastering engineer at The Lodge who also serves as founder of We Are Moving the Needle. Though she planned the evening, Lazar was caught by surprise at the start of the event when she heard her name announced as one of the inductees to the Resonator Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Claudia Brant, Linda Perry, Alicia Keys and more than a dozen others.
“I’ve been searching for the right way to talk about the current movement we face in our industry, because I do feel that we are on the precipice of great change, and I don’t just mean AI or spatial audio or other rapidly growing technologies that are transforming music faster than we can even imagine. But this moment brings us to an honest turning point for the culture of our industry, and it affords us some great promise and opportunity, and it’s a moment that requires participation from all of us. And I know that’s why you’re all here,” Lazar said.
For her part, Morissette said she was in the building because of the night’s focus on “honoring the feminine.” Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson took the responsibility of presenting to Morissette, who invited her band on tour through the U.S. and abroad. “Indeed, the last time we were together, she gifted me my very own witch’s broomstick,” Manson noted. “When my band Garbage opened up for Alanis two summers ago, I bore witness once again to the incredible and intense relationship she enjoys with her audience, her unique and powerful voice, carrying her effortlessly through the not insignificant challenges of her own music. The agility of her voice, the tenderness of it, is never lost on anyone present at any of her shows.”
She then praised Morissette for how she’s navigated what “essentially remains a patriarchal male-dominated entertainment industry” with “astounding grace, vigor and good humor, whilst always pushing for better solutions and situations for all.”
In accepting, the Canadian singer, songwriter, activist and author said, “As I get older, I just have less patience for hatred of the feminine. I just don’t have it, and that’s a very good thing. It makes it such that we walk out of rooms that are not interacting with us in a way that honors what we’re providing so much more to say.” She added: “What I love about working with women, billions of things, but one of them is how quickly we have access to the masculine and the feminine qualities at any given moment. There could be the receptivity of listening and honoring each other, holding space, those silences, the hours and hours of silences and just quietly supporting each other.”
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