THE NOISE FLOOR RECORDING STUDIO

GABRIOLA BOUND!

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:25:00 -0700

The Noise Floor will be relocating to Gabriola Island at the end of May 2013! We are so excited to join the community on “The Isle of The Arts”!

May is filling up like crazy as people say goodbye to our fantastic live room here in Ladysmith. We will be closed for the month of June and possibly part of July, though we will be gratefully accepting visitors (especially those of you with power tools!) as we finish construction on the new studio space.

We will be keeping a studio build diary on this site and on our Facbook page if you are interested in our progress. Check back often!

ZISSOU SAYS: "THIS WAY TO THE NOISE FLOOR!"

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:47:14 -0700

WE ARE MOVING! So we’re having a sale!

WE WILL PAY FOR YOUR VEHICLE AND DRIVER, ROUND TRIP - on all bookings of 3 days or more, on dates until May 31st. So basically Vancouver, just get in your car and enjoy checking out that Pacific Ocean, knowing that you’re riding over it’s face for free.

LIFE IS BUT A DREAM

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:42:00 -0700

… with wonderful artists like these:

White Poppy / N E E D S / Handsome Distraction / Fist City / Bash Bros / Teledrome / Moths and Locusts / Capital Region / Dove / The Mohawk Lodge / KHBR / War Baby / Big Nothing / Ken Oakes / Weed / Dead Soft

all of whom we’ve had the pleasure of spending the last few months with.

How about some pictures?

FIST CITY - LIVE OFF THE NOISE FLOOR

WAR BABY

HEY, NEW BUTTONS!

NEEDS

WHITE POPPY

DEAD SOFT (MINUS DEAD SOFT) - LIVE OFF THE NOISE FLOOR

2013!

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:44:07 -0800

2013! Here we are, approaching almost 3 years of recording rad bands in a small town! We’ve had a fun and busy winter so far. December belonged to the Victoria bands for the most part with sessions with super soul group, THE CHANTRELLES,

a vist from newcomers GOLDSWORTHY, and our annual Christmas slumber party with the wacky boys of KHBR. Vancouver represented at the end of the month with some heavy jams by way of CASCADIA.

We start the new recording year with return visits with favorites from all over: Nanimo’s MOTHS AND LOCUSTS, Vancouver’s WHITE POPPY mixing tracks for her new album on Not Not Fun, Victoria’s HANDSOME DISTRACTION and GOLDSWORTHY, Vancouver’s NEEDS, Calgary’s FIST CITY doing a “Live Off The Noise Floor” set and Vancouver/Toronto/Berlin’s THE MOHAWK LODGE.

February dates are still being penciled in with prime weekends still available at the end of the month.

Photo

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:31:00 -0800

Wars '1979 EP'

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 15:48:00 -0800

By Gregory Adams

Vancouver pop-punk crew Wars have been pretty quiet since issuing their Pacey from Mighty Ducks LP last year. Sure, the band offered up their live set The Unterrible Brightness of Leaning in January, but they’ve pretty well kept to the practice space throughout the rest of 2012. You can now sample the fruits of their labour, though, via the newly dropped 1979 EP.

The title track is a Jawbreaker-inspired romper, which likely means singer Chris Van Der Laan is huffing back a few Chesterfield Kings on the smoke break he’s singing about. The song will appear again later this year on their impending Neville Say Never digital LP.

As for the EP exclusives, things get really fucking weird for the troupe’s cover of Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings,” which plays out over a series of serene six-string drones and Trooper-styled harmonies before the full band blast into the classic track ever so briefly.

You can sample the sessions down below via Wars’ Bandcamp while waiting for Neville Say Never to arrive December 21 through Van Der Laan’s own Boat Dreams from the Hill.

Recent Projects

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 15:19:00 -0800

So many awesome things to share!

We spent a great week with TOUGH MITTS, working on some industrial tinged dance music. We all wore black and smoked cigarettes. Not really. I think we just all made jokes about the dog and listened to Soft Cell.

We then mixed 10 tracks for Victoria’s BALACADE, including this gorgeous little gem:

Vancouver’s THE COURTNEYS spent a wild weekend with us, tracking 8 songs for their upcoming LP.

These girls know how to party in their pajamas! Many nachos were consumed, as were 80’s band movies. They left us with a beautiful drawing of Jordan in the control room:

and a radical tye-dyed T-shirt that clashes with everything! Here’s Jordan wearing it out
for Chinese food:

We finally also finished up mixing and mastering an EP and a full length for Vancouver supergroup, WARS.

The EP was released today! And lucky you, you get to hear it right here!

Each of these projects has been an absolute pleasure to work on. We are so stoked!

The Mohawk Lodge - Howling At The Moon From the album DAMAGED...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:27:00 -0800

The Mohawk Lodge - Howling At The Moon

From the album DAMAGED GOODS.

Recorded and mixed here in January.

YOUR HAND IN MINE!

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:52:00 -0700

Victoria's Babysitter Sign to Psychic Handshake, Announce 'Eye' LP

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:51:22 -0700

By Josiah HughesBest known for releasing Yamantaka // Sonic Titan’s belovedYT/ST, Montreal imprint Psychic Handshake has had its fingers on the pulse of the Canadian underground for a few years now. Its roster, which also includes Red Mass, Tonstartssbandht, Drainolith, the Wicked Awesomes, Dead Wife and others, will expand with the signing of Victoria, BC group Babysitter.

The band, who formed in 2010, have made a name for themselves by releasing grunge-indebted garage punk on small-run cassettes and 7-inches while touring the nation. This winter, they’ll issue their proper debut album, titled Eye.

Promising a new, more refined approach to rock’n’roll, Eye will be available on CD, cassette, vinyl and as a digital download on December 3. Album tracks “Talkin’ Bout the New Generation” and “Whole Hole” can be streamed at the bottom of the page. You can also check out the trackilst to Eye below.

Eye:

1. “Talkin’ Bout the New Generation”
2. “Real Wild Child”
3. “1969ties”
4. “Angel of Death”
5. “Witches Finger”
6. “Crace Mountain”
7. “Prime of My Life”
8. “Whole Hole”
9. “TV Baby”
10. “Gotta Be Me Gotta Be Free”
11. “Born Superior”
12. “Holiday”
13. “1000 Girls”

Summer Lovers

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:34:13 -0700

Been having a great summer working with some talented folks from all over the Island and Vancouver.

Finished up the new BABYSITTER record which should be out by the end of the year. It’s their first full length LP featuring 13 of their best songs taken from their tape series. We did it over 6 days - 3 recording & 3 mixing. Mixed down to 1/4” 2 track at 15ips. It has some great thru effects because of age and improper storage of the tape. It fits in with their aesthetic. Favourite moments making this album include tracking a song in the garden and recording 1/2 speed cymbal swells.

I worked with NORTHCOTE, (Matt Goud) on 4 songs in preparation for a new album. He performed everything himself - acoustic / electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals. He loved the sound of the room so everything was distant mic’d. Hope to add a tune to the player eventually.

Started mixing the MOTHS & LOCUTS album we started a while back. Having a blast mixing this psych rock band.

Mastered a bunch of new albums for AHNA, JUVENILE HALL, KOBAN and RANDOM CUTS - all awesome bands from Vancouver.

I’m also working on a solo record with Matthew Friesen of Teapot Hill at the moment. It’s an 80’s dance record that currently sounds somewhere in between Tears For Fears and New Order. Having fun playing some guitar and synth stuff on this record.

The DYEING MERCHANTS album and MOHAWK LODGE record that I worked on this year are now out and about. Available for streaming somewhere out there…..

Recent Projects

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:03:20 -0700

RANDOM CUTS

KOBAN

MOTHS AND LOCUSTS

Vancouver's Peace Sign to Suicide Squeeze for 'The World Is Too Much With Us'

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:29:00 -0700

By Gregory Adams
Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze imprint is clearly in the midst of an infatuation with its neighbours to the north in Vancouver. As previously reported, the label issues Nü Sensae’s Sundowning next Tuesday (August 7), and now the label has added another of Lotusland’s punk-oriented bands, Peace, to its roster.

The group’s sophomore set The World Is Too Much With Us will be delivered October 16. That’s the album art for the William Wordsworth-referencing LP, a photo of fiery-haired guitarist Mike Willock honking down on a big banana in a public park, up above.

Like last year’s full-length debut My Face, The World Is Too Much With Us was recorded over at Jordan Koop’s the Noise Floor studio in Ladysmith, BC.

According to a press release, the album “builds on the depth and drama latent” of past work, while accentuating the dynamics between Willock’s wah-indebted leads, resident poet/guitarist Dan Geddes’s post-punk sing-speak, drummer Geoff Dembicki’s steady thud and the “crushing and repetitive” bass work of Connor Mayer.

You can stream the upbeat album opener “Your Hand in Mine”here.

Peace will apparently be taking off on tour this October, but the group’s tour itinerary has yet to be set in stone.

The World Is Too Much With Us:

1. Your Hand In Mine
2. Fun and Games
3. The Perp Walk
4. Kissed Dust
5. Black Cocaine
6. Winterhouse
7. Free Time
8. Tattoo

Spin magazine previews the new Peace record "The World Is Too Much With Us"

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:24:00 -0700

July 31 2012, 12:23 PM ET
by David Bevan

The World Is Too Much With Us is the name of British Columbian post-punk outfit Peace’s sophomore full-length, an album the foursome allegedly recorded in Pam Anderson’s hometown (Ladysmith, “a fogged-in hamlet” on Vancouver Island’s eastern coast, according to press materials) last year. It is as dark in tone and tenor as skies over Vancouver in December, heard clearly in the slightly acidic, Orange Juice-informed first listen “Your Hand In Mine,” a moonlit number with a heavy heart and dead eyes. The World Is Too Much With Us is due in October by way of Suicide Squeeze.

LISTEN HERE:
http://www.spin.com/articles/listen-peaces-moonlit-your-head-mine

Stream our 2012 studio sampler, Garden Party!

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:14:02 -0700

A great evening. Victoria’s Himalayan Bear performs live...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:58:00 -0700

A great evening. Victoria’s Himalayan Bear performs live off the Noise Floor.

Check out our video of PEACE performing live at the Sled Island...

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:46:00 -0700

Check out our video of PEACE performing live at the Sled Island Festival in Calgary. This track is off the new record we recorded a few months ago, coming out soon on Suicide Squeeze!

Alan Cross Approved!

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:02:00 -0700

Famed music broadcaster and former host of “The Ongoing History of New Music”, Alan Cross, gives his thumbs up on the Sid Johnson record we worked on over the past year!

From his blog:

“I really enjoy when an independent artist comes out of the middle of nowhere and is simply good at what they do. When they’re honest, and when they sound like they’ve been places, seen and felt things, cause that’s what this is really all about.”

Way to go Sid!

The entire album can be streamed and purchased HERE.

GARDEN PARTY! A STUDIO SAMPLER.

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:51:00 -0700

By Gregory Adams for Exclaim

Since it opened its doors in July 2010, Ladysmith, BC recording studio the Noise Floor has become an oft-used getaway for BC bands looking to combine a Vancouver Island vaycay with a top-notch studio session. Engineer Jordan Koop and studio manager Terry Stewart have now collected the cream of the crop for the promotional comp Garden Party.

While the 18-song set features a handful of previously released material from garage rockers Babysitter, post-hardcore quintet Womankind and a track off pop punks Needles//Pins’ new 12:34 LP, there are a couple of exclusives on the collection too. For instance, check out Frog Eyes protégé Himalayan Bear’s “The Scent of Memory,” recorded live in the studio, and Slam Dunk side-project Bankrobber’s self-titled debut tune. You can stream the whole of Garden Party HERE.

A track from NEEDLES // PINS record that was recorded here at...

Sun, 20 May 2012 21:20:00 -0700

A track from NEEDLES // PINS record that was recorded here at the beginning of the year and being released on MAMMOTH CAVE this week!