Alan Moulder
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Alan Moulder (born 11 June 1959) is one of Britain's premier alternative rock record producers. A major architect of the modern British rock sound, Moulder has worked with such artists as Depeche Mode, U2, and My Bloody Valentine; as well as with many American artists including Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins.
Alan Moulder was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. From an early age, Moulder had an interest in music, listing among his favorite artists Cream, The Beatles, and the Bee Gees. The first album he ever bought was Electric Warrior by T. Rex, and was immediately impressed by the quality of that album's recording. He joined his first band as a teenager and recorded a demo in a local studio; it was there that he realized that it had been the production that he had so enjoyed on that T. Rex record, and discovered that he was more interested in music engineering than in performing.
Moulder's musical career truly started in the early 1980s, at Trident Studios in London. As an assistant engineer, he worked with influential producers like Brian Eno, drawing from them great familiarity with electronic sounds and textures. Also an engineer at Trident was Flood, with whom Moulder would often collaborate in the future. Moulder assisted in a recording session of Flood's, with The Jesus and Mary Chain, and found that the often fractious and troublesome band enjoyed working with him. The Mary Chain invited Moulder to engineer their live sounds and, eventually, to produce their 1989 album Automatic. The album's production was praised for its combination of thick, noisy guitar with a polished, listener-friendly tone, and the Mary Chain's label, Creation Records, soon had Moulder producing records for Ride and My Bloody Valentine.
After working on the Glider and Tremolo EPs for My Bloody Valentine, Moulder was approached nearly simultaneously by two bands who were fans of that group. Agreeing in 1992 to work with both of them, he engineered what would become two of alternative rock's most successful albums: the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, and The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails.
His work with NIN led to his engineering several albums for Trent Reznor's nothing Records, including Prick's eponymous album and Marilyn Manson's debut Portrait of an American Family; while in 1995 he would again collaborate with the Smashing Pumpkins, co-producing with Flood their double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
In 1992, Moulder also co-produced female duo Shakespears Sister's second album Hormonally Yours, which became one of the biggest sellers in the UK and Europe that year.
During the 1990's, Moulder also worked extensively with British now defunct alternative band Curve, and is currently married to Curve's singer Toni Halliday.
In 1996 he worked with Moby on Animal Rights and The Cure on Wild Mood Swings, and the next year worked again with Flood, this time on U2's electronic album Pop. In 1997 he remixed the single "Useless" for Depeche Mode, a band which has hired him in a number of times as a remixer/engineer. Then 1999 saw Moulder and Reznor in the studio together again; Moulder produced, mixed, and engineered Nine Inch Nails' hugely successful The Fragile. Another album with the Smashing Pumpkins, Machina/The Machines of God, followed in 2000, along with a remix album for NIN and the debut by A Perfect Circle, Mer de Noms.
In 2005, Moulder produced Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan's solo debut TheFutureEmbrace along with another Nine Inch Nails album, With Teeth; and mixed the debut album Hot Fuss by New Wave revivalists The Killers.
In 2006, he worked with the Killers once more, co-producing their second album Sam's Town. The same year, he also mixed the album Ten Silver Drops by Secret Machines and "Movie Monster" by Sound Team.
Currently (late 2006), Alan is working with Trent Reznor on the new Nine Inch Nails album (Year Zero), a follow-up to the With Teeth album which was released in 2005, and is rumored to be involved in Saul Williams' next record.
Alan Moulder is married to former Curve lead singer Toni Halliday.
- Jorgl, Stephanie. Alan Moulder [1]