The Home Recording Handbook

The Home Recording Handbook by Martin Newell is part memoir, part love letter to pop music. It is 170 pages expressing the Godfather of Lo-fi's dedication on music making with an independent spirit. "This is not a home recording handbook," says Martin Newell of his unhandily-titled The Home Recording Handbook. Instead, it's the long-overdue completion of a book that was begun and then lost in 1983. It's a set of salty anecdotes from a life working in pop music. It's a broadside to the music business. It's a short inventory of inexpensive musical tools. It's a 'when not to' and 'why not to' rather than a 'how to'. It's a dispatch from the sidelines and a love letter to popular song. It's a brief guide to the pleasures and perils of recording music at home, by the musician, songwriter and founder of the cult English lo-fi group, the Cleaners from Venus, Martin Newell - a leading figure in the history of cassette culture and godfather of DIY music-making. It does happen to contain some tips on home recording. But it's probably not a handbook.