David Baron

For fans of Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter and Jon Hopkins: David Baron is a composer and producer whose solo work — Cycles, Nagra Piano, Ashokan Piano, The ARP 2500 — sits in that same modern-classical, ambient-piano space, built entirely on vintage analog gear rather than software. At Sun Mountain Studios in Boiceville, NY, Baron records straight to a 1970s Nagra tape machine and plays one of the few working ARP 2500 synthesizers left in the world — no screens, no edits, no digital processing. That instrument is the sound: warm, physical, and impossible to fake with a plugin. Baron is also a producer, engineer and multi-instrumentalist behind major records of the last decade — he produced, mixed and engineered The Lumineers' Brightside (playing bass, piano, organ and synth on the title track) and their Automatic album, played keyboards on Cleopatra, served as arranger, conductor and musician (piano, baritone sax, Hammond B3) on Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass," co-produced Matt Maeson's "Hallucinogenics," and has worked alongside Lenny Kravitz for two decades since co-founding Edison Studios with him in 2000 — bringing that same studio craft back to his own catalogue. New listeners: start with Nagra Piano or Earthling (from Cycles, featured in Peacock's Brave New World).