Mitch Easter, R.E.M. producer and studio engineer for Brighten The Corners, sits down with The Fader:

[Pavement] had a great way of working, which was quasi-jamming but not just pure jamming. They would just play together on a song that everybody kind of had an idea what the chorus was, but every time they played it, it had a different feel. Things changed a lot from one time to the next and the idea was that you just recorded everything and they would just pick the good one and that became the version. When you buy a record, you just get so used to it and sometimes it’s hard to imagine how a song can be done any other way, but if you heard all the session tapes from this one, it’s really remarkable how big the shift was on every take....

For me, the most fun is working with bands like [Pavement] where they really have a lot of ideas. If somebody says, 'I got this chord progression, can you help me turn this into a finished track?' I can do that, but working with people like them is fun because everybody is talking and everybody is throwing stuff down and you don't even remember who said what, and in the end, you just have this great thing.

Read the full interview.

Featured Tracks:
Stereo (remastered album track)
And Then (The Hexx) (extended version of b-side)