Somewhere around 4 a.m. in the quiet hours of an early January morning, Andrew Dawson's phone started ringing. When the longtime producer and recording engineer answered, Kanye West was on the line asking Dawson to come to West's home studio in Calabasas, Calif. to work on his forthcoming seventh solo album. Dawson didn't even wait until daybreak. "I went out and started working on the record every day with him since then," he says over the phone from his Los Angeles recording studio. "Answer those 4 a.m. calls, everybody."
What was the past week like for you?
Even though we initially decided to do the shift thing, all of us were pretty much at the studio 24 hours a day. [Laughs] I'd maybe go home and sleep for four hours, so doing the 12-hour work shift didn't really happen these last two, three weeks. And it was pretty intense to be honest with you. When Chance came in and wanted "Waves" to be on the record that last night, it was intense just finishing it up and getting everything done and polished the way it needed to be. The added songs on the track listing were cool, too; I was like, "Cool, let's give the fans more." I was actually kind of happy to see that more stuff was getting released rather than less, because it was all songs that we had been working on.
So how did it feel to finally wash your hands of the whole thing and be like, "Well, it's gone now"?
Well, especially because the day we finished [Sunday Feb. 14] I flew back out to L.A. and got out of the three degree weather, it was nice; I just sat at home on my back patio and listened to the birds and watched the wind and didn't do anything for about two hours. So it was like a decompression moment. For me, as far as listening to the album, it takes me some time for me to be able to appreciate or judge work that I've done because I'm so close to it and trying to deliver the best possible thing that I can do that I have to sort of sit back and wait a few months to approach it with fresh ears. Maybe later this spring I'll be able to be out and listen to it and reflect on it a little bit more. But right now I'm just kind of breathing again. [Laughs]​
