We tend to think of the Oklahoman music scene as being largely insulated and self-sufficient, propelled by the scrappy willpower and characteristic stubbornness of our community mindset and our DIY attitudes.
But even though Oklahoma’s musical community is assuredly singular, it’s not all self-contained.
There are a handful of places – and more importantly, a handful of people – outside of Oklahoma’s borders that have become integral to the music emanating from our state scene in recent years.
And one name that’s popped up repeatedly on recent releases from some of the state’s best and brightest-burning artists is Felipe Castañeda, an engineer at the secluded desert oasis studio Sonic Ranch.
Billed as “the largest residential recording studio in the world,” Sonic Ranch, on the outskirts of Tornillo, Texas, is a dream destination for musicians and artists from all over, hosting and recording everyone from Bon Iver and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Fiona Apple and Animal Collective.
But the desert getaway has come to hold a special place in the hearts and minds of Oklahoman artists looking for a unique and creatively encouraging space to write and record far removed from the bustle and grind of our own city studios.
Some of the biggest names in OKC music have made the trek out to Sonic Ranch in recent years.
Jason Scott and The High Heat’s brand new “American Grin” tracked at the studio, as did LABRYS for the “10:10” record, and Johnny Manchild even launched a full Kickstarter campaign just to raise the funds needed to fulfill his dream of recording there.
But it’s not just the secluded studio complex that those records all have in common.
They were also all engineered by Castañeda, a musician, aspiring producer, and Mexico City-native who’s spent the last five years in Texas at Sonic Ranch learning the ropes, taking the reins, and developing a particular love for our Oklahoman artists.
“There must be something happening in Oklahoma, because all of the musicians coming from there are just so good,” Castañeda told me over FaceTime from inside the brand-new live room at Sonic Ranch. “They all have their own personalities and ways of expressing themselves, and also, it’s like these bands are all friends and they all play together and lend each other musicians.”
That’s been true of so many of the Oklahoman bands he’s worked with and recorded at the Ranch, like Twiggs, Swim Fan, and Thunder Jackson from OKC, and even recent Tulsa-based breakouts Wilderado.
Castañeda attributes a lot of the connection between Oklahoma and the Ranch to repeat producers like Chad Copelin and Jarod Evans of Norman’s Blackwatch Studios, who regularly bring artists down to Sonic Ranch for major projects.
“I think Chad might be the guy that’s brought more projects to Sonic Ranch than anyone ever,” he said. “He’s been here probably close to thirty times with different bands and projects.”
It’s obvious, then, that there’s something special going on at Sonic Ranch if even the owners of one of Oklahoma’s coolest and most in-demand studio spaces are regularly taking projects all the way to Texas.
“We have all of this awesome rare and vintage gear here, like so much cool stuff,” Castañeda said. “But at the Ranch, there’s just a different energy. Like everyone is just trying to give their best because they’re so far away from home, but they’re also just having such a great time. When people come here, they know that they’ve come to do something special, and we as engineers really try to atone to that vibe, too.”
That kind of commitment and single-minded focus on the process and the communal experience of recording and learning together is what Castañeda said drew him to Sonic Ranch.
After growing up in Mexico City and graduating with a degree in environmental engineering, Castañeda followed his musical interest into a contest to study recording engineering in San Francisco, which he was surprised to win.
“I got to live and learn in a studio in San Francisco for close to two years, and something just clicked in me,” he said. “I knew I just had to learn engineering more and learn all about sound design and how sounds are glued together.”
But when he was looking for a place to continue studying engineering, and to begin building a life and a body of work in studio recording, it was an unexpected source that ended up pointing him toward Sonic Ranch.
“It was my dad actually,” Castañeda said. “He’s not involved in music at all, but we had a neighbor in Mexico City, and the neighbor’s brother was actually a big, Grammy-winning producer. So my dad had me just talk to the neighbor and then talk to his brother and he was just like ‘you should go to Sonic Ranch. That’s the place to learn what you want to learn.’”
And learn he did. But it’s also provided him a path into a community and a much wider, extended musical world than he ever expected, eventually tying him into the Oklahoman music scene in a way that he never could’ve foreseen, even coming up to OKC to engineer some projects here as well.
“I was even telling Chad, like, people in Oklahoma are just nice, like they’ll nod to you in the street and they just seem happy,” Castañeda told me. “It’s just such a great community there.”
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
