Deep Cuts: Everett’s Soniphone Records
I’m in downtown Everett watching a record being made.
The 180 gram slab of vinyl is taped to a spinning turntable. As a stylus cuts concentric grooves the excess material is peeled off in a continuous ribbon to be sucked into the hose of a shop vac.
Kyle Ledford, owner of Soniphone Records, stands over the vinyl cutting workbench, monitoring progress and dialing in sound levels. He wears a fedora and suspenders over a Hawaiian shirt. The workbench is covered in tools: an infrared thermometer, a can of WD-40, a box of nitrate gloves.
Music streams into the vinyl cutting machine from an iPad propped up nearby.
The final result of this process will be a shiny black 33 1/3 RPM record that anyone can play on a conventional turntable.
Digital-to-analog and vice versa is Kyle’s bag. He’s a tinkerer, the sort of guy who has retrofitted a rotary phone so that it makes and receives calls from his cell.
He’s spent five years collecting vintage machines such as his Ampex 350 reel-to-reel recorder, and his Tascam mixing board. These machines now fill his studio— a place filled with hanging plants, art, and stacks of comic books.
Besides his literal fedora, self-employed Kyle Ledford wears a lot of hats.
He performs live music as Johnny Lee Ledford. His debut full length album under this moniker is scheduled to drop later this year.
Kyle started Everett-based Soniphone Records because he wanted to connect artists to resources.
“Young bands often don’t know how to book a show, package, or distribute a record,” he says. That can be intimidating. “They don’t have industry connections starting out.”
Kyle has this knowledge (ask him sometime about the merits of tip-on record packaging). As the owner of Soniphone Records he works with local artists like The Moon is Flat, Sleepwell Citizen, and The Requisite to help them gain exposure.
And now he’s manufacturing his own vinyl products with clients from Everett and abroad.
“I might be the only person in the US cutting directly to vinyl,” he says.
Right now he orders his blank records in bulk from France.
Kyle Ledford, owner of Soniphone Records.
His enthusiasm is contagious. I try to write down his thoughts as he throws them out over the sound of the shop vac.
“I’ve really pushed myself to produce small batch vinyl that doesn’t sound like the 1950s,” Kyle says. “I want to go one hundred percent end-to-end analog when working with artists. I’m working toward being able to create a record that has never touched a computer.”
He tells me his current analog recording set-up is pretty cool. It’s an almost exact replica of what Elvis cut his first albums on at the Sun Records studios.
And so it is: Soniphone Records is bringing Memphis circa 1950 to modern day Everett.
One vinyl at a time.
Richard Porter is a social worker and musician. He lives in North Everett and enjoys running on Marine View Drive, bicycling down tree-lined streets, and trying to coax vegetables out of his yard.
