Early career As a musician, Raphael formed two bands in Seattle, Mental Mannequin and Colour Twigs. He was also the keyboardist for the Seattle-based psychedelic band
Sky Cries Mary and part of a dark-wave band called Absinthee with Anna Mercedes. His favorite instrument is the Arp Odyssey, which he started learning at age 18. This small 1970's analog synthesizer creates an infinite pallet of evocative, intense outer space noises as well as a barrage of bass which he uses on many of his own and other artist's recordings.
2000s: The Strokes and work in Europe Raphael moved to London in 2002 following the success of
Is This It, and founded a studio there called The Silver Transporterraum of London. In his first year living there, he worked with thirty bands, and was asked to produce the debut album of
The Libertines whilst mixing live sound on their first-ever UK Tour (with
The Vines and The Strokes). Rapahel also began curating a club night called The Basement Club with
Transgressive Records co-founder Toby L, presented very early concerts by
Regina Spektor,
Bloc Party, The Libertines, and Raphael's own band Black Light among many others. In 2005, after working for almost a year on The Strokes album
First Impressions of Earth, Raphael was replaced as producer by
David Kahne. He moved to Berlin to be close to his friend, producer
Moses Schneider. From his Berlin base, many European bands began to contact him via the internet to work, including Zeno and the Stoics (Madrid), Mikkel Glasser (Copenhagen), Satellites (Mallorca),
Big Deal (London),
A Brand (Brussels), Deportivo (Paris),
Scanners (London),
Olivia Anna Livki (Berlin), Super 700 (Berlin),
Ian Astbury (London), Eva Loft (Berlin), and The Michelles (Berlin).
2010s: Further international work and original music In January 2010, Raphael went to
Cape Town, South Africa, to produce the debut album
Shark by indie rock band The Plastics. In 2011–2012, Raphael worked in San Antonio, Texas with Education,
The Dirty Clergy, Ill Prospekt and Victoria Celestine. He then met Ricky Berger and co-engineered her new collection of songs. Around the time of
Hurricane Sandy, he was back for a rare visit to Manhattan producing an album for
Lewis Lazar, then luckily being called to his beloved Seattle for an album with Ben Ireland (a drummer that Raphael worked closely with in his own bands including Mental Mannequin, The Tears of Gloom, and Sky Cries Mary). Whilst in the Pacific Northwest, Raphael was introduced to
The Tempers, a "wild-electronic band of brother and twin sisters" and was thrilled to record 6 interstellar electronic rock songs with them. In May 2013, he went to
Lima, Peru, to record a Peruvian new band called Los Outsaiders. In October 2013, he went to
Seattle, Washington, and recorded a seven-song EP with Red Martian. In April 2014, Raphael went to
Mexico City and recorded a six-song EP with the up-and-coming band Sol Flamingo while simultaneously filming a small documentary on "the making" of it with
Montreal based filmmaker Patrick Barbeau. Raphael gave a production master-class at British & Irish Modern Music Institute in Berlin (BIMM) in March 2016. A fortunate development occurred when rising Argentinian musician Rocco Posca asked Raphael to produce his new album,
Fervor for Sony Music. In June 2018, these recording sessions began, and on the first day guitarist Maria Florencia Silva, offered to start a new band with Raphael, called The Wild Cards which toured briefly through South America. On January 1, 2019, Raphael released his album
I Lick The Moog, which had been recorded in his old NYC Studio Transporterraum during Christmas 2000, four months before the recording of The Strokes
Is This It began. At that time Raphael, was actually living in the studio, in a basement under Avenue A. The album contains outsider-rock songs, mixed with experimental soundscapes and electronic atmospheres created on his beloved Arp Odyssey, a Jupiter 6 and Mini Moog. As of June 1, 2025 Gordon Raphael has 15 albums of his own music on all streaming platforms, as well as 4 EPs and 12 singles. ==Production discography==