Doom Mutual ink a deal with Hiss Recordings (label of producer Nick Raskulinecz)

Hiss Recordings, a new singles-focused label run by GRAMMY Award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz (Deftones, Foo Fighters, Kittie), has announced Doom Mutual as its first signing, as per theprp. With his new solo song “Bonfire,” which saw him working with members of Korn and Big Wreck, Raskulinecz recently founded that label. With a recently released two-song single, shoegazers Doom Mutual are the first outside artist to sign with that label. The songs “Static Planet” and “Crowbar” are part of that endeavour. Additionally, a music video for “Static Planet” was recently released.

It’s about searching for connection in a world that feels distant and artificial. We wanted the music to feel like a blanket of sound — massive and overwhelming — like trying to find a signal through endless noise. – Doom Mutual

The main focus of this new endeavour will be seven-inch singles by performers whom Raskulinecz likes. These two Doom Mutual songs were, predictably, also recorded and mixed by Raskulinecz.

They have a really cool sound that needs to be heard! I think people will really dig what they are about. Super creative, and they have a great sound that’s different from what’s happening now.

Raskulinecz hails from Knoxville, Tennessee’s Bearden neighbourhood. His grandpa bought him an eight-track recorder for US$2,700, which he used to record and produce bands in Knoxville. He was a member of Hypertribe, a well-known local thrash/funk band. Matt Lincoln shared production and engineering responsibilities at the Underground Recording Studio in Seymour, Tennessee, where three of their albums were made. In 1995, Raskulinecz relocated to Los Angeles with his band, which is now called Movement, and accepted an assistant position at Sound City Studios after Weezer‘s Brian Bell recommended it. In the end, he learnt how to produce and became an engineer.

Shortly after leaving Sound City in 2001, Raskulinecz was having trouble working as an independent engineer at a rehearsal studio and considered moving back to Knoxville with his wife Amber. Then, at his home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, Dave Grohl, whom he had met while engineering the Foo Fighters song “A320” for “Godzilla: The Album”, asked Raskulinecz to collaborate on the band’s upcoming album.