Background
Locust Abortion Technician was the first Surfers album primarily recorded at the band's home studio, which was originally assembled in a rental house they were sharing near Austin, Texas in 1986. A private studio did not mean an end to the sub-standard equipment that had plagued their previous recording sessions, though. In addition to having just one microphone, they also used an outdated 8-track tape recorder instead of the 16-track gear used on Rembrandt Pussyhorse. However, guitarist Paul Leary believes that the inferior equipment forced the band to be more creative than they might otherwise have been.
Additionally, the new studio freed the band from having to worry about recording costs, allowing them to experiment even more than on previous releases. Jeff Pinkus has also said that the home studio gave them the luxury of taking extended breaks for drug use.
Many of the album's tracks also underwent extensive in-studio development. Though this had largely become a Surfers tradition, Locust Abortion Technician was one of their last recordings done in such a manner, with the band going into the studio with more fully formed songs on subsequent releases. Pinkus has expressed the opinion that the earlier, more chaotic recording sessions resulted in much of the spontaneous creativity that had propelled the group's early albums.
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