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Before you were known as a producer, you were inside the band. You played accordion and guitar on Jim Neversink’s 2005 debut, the same album that launched your production career, and you later became the keyboardist and synth player for The Black Hotels, touring and appearing on their releases for several years afterward. What did you carry out of being a player in the room, not the person running the session, into how you produce now?

A good producer needs to spend time in the trenches, from carrying a PA system up four flights of stairs to setting up and understanding most instruments, even if you’re not proficient on them.

By the time I worked with Jim Neversink, The Black Hotels, and The Awakening/Ashton Nyte solo [Nyte fronts one of South Africa’s longest-running gothic rock acts], I was already an experienced studio engineer, working in top-tier studios for major labels, having produced various works along the way.

I certainly wasn’t inexperienced, but performing regular gigs and touring professionally was a new discipline.

One gets street-smart quickly, especially when things go wrong with tech or gig logistics and you must think on your feet. I cherish all the musicians and bands I have performed with, but at the end of the day, I don’t always play well with others.

The bio is careful to say you’re not defined by a recognisable production signature, and yet you’ve held onto artists as different as Nakhane (Toure), FUZIGISH, and Matthew Mole for years. If nothing recognisable ties those projects together on the surface, what actually connects them from where you’re sitting, and what changes between one and the next?

Each of these artists has a compelling energy and talent that I am drawn to. My record collection at home reflects just this. Post-punk records sit alongside indie, hip-hop, electronica, classic rock, jazz, whatever. I’m interested in personality, flavour, and diversity.

You play piano, organ, accordion, guitar, and synthesizers yourself. What does having that hands-on musicianship give you access to in a session, something you don’t think an engineer without a player’s background would ever catch?

Calling myself a musician would be an overly generous compliment. Being a jack-of-all-trades has put me in good stead as an arranger, producer, and engineer. It is important for an engineer to have knowledge and hands-on experience on the instruments they are recording, without necessarily being a prodigy. Imagine being a mechanic who can’t drive?

The Home We Built became the first South African debut album to top the iTunes chart, and years later I’m with the Singer won Best Alternative Album at the SAMAs. Looking at those two albums side by side now, what did each of them teach you about what you actually prioritise when you’re choosing or shaping a project today

I now attempt not to sweat the little things (say attempt). I try not to squander time on the tone of, say, the high-hat, but rather spend time on the groove that the high-hat is playing. The Home We Built got the best of both worlds. If recorded today, I’d work quicker, and not do things like put three top-end mics and pretentious pre-amps to record one tambourine part. However, that in itself was part of the journey of that specific record, something which I know Matthew Mole and I both geeked out about, and it was a most enjoyable studio experience.

Move ahead a decade-plus with Martin Schofield’s I’m with the Singer project, our attitude was “if it sounds good, it is good.” Sure, we used loads of cool gear, but we didn’t agonise over anything. Martin had seamlessly completed the song arrangements before I came on board, whereas with The Home We Built, I constructed the tracks from the ground up with Matthew Mole.

“I now attempt not to sweat the little things (say attempt). I try not to squander time on the tone of, say, the high-hat, but rather spend time on the groove that the high-hat is playing.”

- Matthew Fink

Your roster now includes newer names like Mthuthu, Sannie Fox, and L8 Antique, more than two decades on from Jim Neversink. What pulls you toward working with a newer artist today, and how has what you listen for in a first conversation with someone shifted since you started?

I find myself enjoying working on projects that may be perceived as being out of my comfort zone. A highlight of the past year-plus was producing L8 Antique, who use a palette of fusion-style chords in their writing that I find most intriguing, because those chords are not second nature to me. On the other hand, creating a wall of noise with Pussy Heaven [a Johannesburg post-punk trio] was an incredible creative outlet that I am so proud of. I still love the feeling you get hearing something new that you just know has the X-factor.

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By his own account, Fink was already a working studio engineer, producing records for major labels, when he stepped out from behind the desk to tour and perform with Jim Neversink and The Black Hotels. Touring professionally, he says, was the new discipline, not the studio. What hasn’t changed in the two decades since is the instinct underneath it all: find what’s true about the artist in the room, and get out of its way.

Get in touch with Matthew Fink at matthew@atomicstudios.co.za, atomicstudios.co.za, or on Instagram at atomic.studios.za.

Responses may have minor edits for clarity.

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