Phoenix Buys Recording Console Used For 'Thriller'

(2-8-2013) The forthcoming fifth studio album ‘Bankrupt!’ of the French alternative rock band Phoenix was mixed on the same Harrison 4032 solid-state recording console that captured Michael Jackson’s all-time classic ‘Thriller’.

The console surfaced on eBay, where band guitarist Lauren Brancowitz found it. It belonged to Clayton Rose, owner of a Christian music studio out in Fullerton (California, USA). Following a number of emails, frontman Thomas Mars picked it up for $17,000, a bargain from the original asking price of $32,000.

The band said they purchased the console because they “liked the idea of working with a consecrated artefact, as well as having something strange to fixate on between albums.” Thomas Mars told The New Yorker:

“The most mysterious part to me was that no one else—no nerd or music engineer or memorabilia freak—seemed to want it. There was something a little spooky about him [Clayton Rose]. He was very pushy. It seemed like a scam.”

Soon after they purchased it, the 1,100-pound console was shipped to Paris (France), where the band mixed ‘Bankrupt!’, which at the time was tentatively titled “Alternative Thriller”. The new album is scheduled for a release in April 2013 via Glassnote Records.

Phoenix released their debut album ‘United’ in 2000. This was followed up with ‘Alphabetical’ in 2004, ‘It’s Never Been Like That’ in 2006 and 2009’s ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’.

Source: MJFC / Consequence of Sound / The New Yorker / NME