Emperor Yes VS Portasound

Emperor Yes Vs Portasound

we did a remix swap with our great friends Portasound

 

Summer Camps new EP “ALWAYS”

Summer Camp’s new EP is out, you can hear the first single called Always here and the second single here

new EP

i have worked on and off with Jeremy since 2006 in about as many different roles as music has to offer. driver, tour manager, sound man, engineer, filmer, groupie, i’ve done them all. everyone who thinks they work hard should measure them selves against Jeremy,  he is a force to be reckoned with, and the source of much knowledge.

all the live drums on the EP were recorded here a couple of months ago, played by William Bowerman.

Death to Dreaming @ House of Strange

Alex Mattinson from Emmy the Great’s band has started a new project called Death to Dreaming, its electro and fuzzy. he spent a weekend here with Grace Banks and we made these two tunes Monster Mask, Screen Tests

all the synths were done using the Dave Smith Evolver, Roland Alpha Juno and alex’s Yamaha Sk80. there is lots of memory man on everything 😀

Alex and Grundy

thanks to Grundy Le Zimbra for his engineering help and Max Klein for the mastering

MA live in the studio

late last year i recorded this live session with London based noise makers MA.

they have a bunch of dates around the UK and Europe coming up, you can here more of their music here

filmed by George Nindi, Louis Nindi and Scott Jackson

Emperor Yes have gone live

Emperor yes have finally taken to the stage, we have had 4 gigs so far and lots more coming.

Bull and Gate

we have lots of exciting plans to do with releases and art coming soon. ahoy 😛

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Milo Tchais paints in the studio

more painting!! Milo Tchais has been living in London for ages, and has been making this place super colorful.

Milo and the totem pole

he has just finished making some awesome iphone covers, go check them here (there are also some done by Billy 😀 yay)

Stop Motion Climbing in Ropponggi, Tokyo

when i was in Tokyo last year i met Tak Nakano, a photographer from Australia. we spent an afternoon getting drunk, taking photos and making this.

i was probably only climbing around for an hour but everything hurt for about a week.

Burn Baby Burn with Tim Wheeler and Emmy the Great

can you believe BBC6 music has been around for 10 years? well its true and as a birthday present to them, Tim Wheeler and Emmy the Great came round to record a special ‘happy birthday’ version of the tune for their show.

Emmy hard at work while Tim makes elephant noises

i remember in ’96 when Dan and I first got MD players, 1977 by ASH was the first album we ‘burned’ from CD, the second was Wu-Tang’s 36 Chamber. which was recorded at the studio Tim now runs in New York. yes.

Tim on the Dave Smith Evolver

Geek and Gear Attack : we only had 3 or 4 hours to complete the tune, but we were fulled on sushi and Tim knew the parts pretty well already. the begin of the tune is Dan Schreiber talking to Siri. the drums came off of the Tenori-On. the synth parts were all recorded with a Dave Smith Evolver, Tim played a Martin acoustic, and for the solo a 70s Fender Music Man, through a Analog Man SunLion into a Vermona Retro-verb completely overloading the UAD 2-610 😀 we also used a bunch of zip and zap sounds from the trusty toy ray gun. the track was mixed here by me and mastered by Max Klein

Sweet Toof @ House of Strange

its been so busy here at the studio since christmas i havent mentioned a thing on here. i’ll try and catch up over the next couple of weeks but check out this new piece of paint on the wall in the studio.

Sweet Toof has been a part of my london since i moved here in 2003, its such an honour to have his trade mark pink in the studio! and what a location.

Sweet Toof

…. who couldn’t do with more skulls 😀

 

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Emperor Yes is here

so after a year of work there is now a band called Emperor Yes. it consists of Adam Betts, Hugo Sheppard and me. we play live music.

logo by Low Bros

this couldn’t have happened with out alot of help from some super people and the tracks have Jeremy Warmsley from Summer Camp and all the members of the Three Trapped Tigers all over them. the flute is played by the wonderful Jacqui Ellul (who played the flute on Noah and the Whale’s 5 Years Time), Dan Schreiber the creator of Museum of Curiosity and Grundy La Zimbra from The Woe Betides sing on most of the tunes.

its been a long road to get here, dropping house of strange band took a while to get used to, and writing a bunch of new songs after song long was a challenge. but i have tick alot of the original boxes that i was aiming for. no computers, songs with choruses, songs that were easier to digest structurally, lots of vocoders, and to bring back the guitar.

all the songs were recorded here at the House of Strange Studios by me, and mixed by me and the maxximum Max Klein. ill do a post to geek out on the recording process in the new year for those who are interested.

the logo was done by the Low Bros who are two brothers from Berlin. their work is always amazing, go check them out.

listen to Emperor Yes here if the soundcloud player below isnt showing up

Each is a Mirror by Hugo Sheppard

Hugo Sheppard’s new song Each is a Mirror can be heard now!

Hugo Sheppard

*click on the i to go to his bandcamp page

LUCAS paints a wall in the studio

we just had LUCAS, a wonderfully wonderful lad from Belfast down to the studio to color up another wall. his paint is all over the east end of london, and he has an exhibition on at Tony’s with Malarky, Mr Penfold, and Billy open until the 18th of Dec.

LUCAS @ House of Strange Studios

heres a quick time lapse of the painting, music by house of strange

Bloody Beetroots – Church of Noise

So recently, the Bloody Beetroots had filmed a new music video here in London at Pinewood studios for their song ‘Church of Noise’. I (Max Klein) was cast as an extra for the video, see how many times you can spot me throughout the video! Whoever can find all my shots wins!

Was a fun day, lots of cool people around and was actually great to see Dennis Lyxzén after over 10 years! (Dennis is the lead singer from an old hardcore group named Refused and was collaborating with the Beetroots for this track). Last time I saw Dennis was in Hong Kong when I opened for his old band back in 1999.

House of Strange stickers found in Europe

i’ve just been in Europe with Three Trapped Tigers and stuck as many of these around as possible. its good to see someone has seen them.

house of strange in the hague

this photo comes from the flickr page of The Hauge’s famous street art photographer Akbar Simonse : D

Three Trapped Tigers European autumn tour 2011

i just got back from 10 days away doing live sound for Three Trapped Tigers in Europe. the tour started with a super successful show at the Garage in London and made its way in varying degrees of success all the way to Copenhagen, Denmark 😀

keyboards ahoy

for a more detailed account of what we did check out Adam Bett’s Das Blogenhog

TTT have been at House of Strange Studios recording the drums for a new secret release, keep your ears pealed.

Live filming session with Arcane Roots

earlier today the most lovely of the loveliest Arcane Roots came to the studio to film and record some acoustic tracks to accompany a new single. they brought in a bunch of people including Emily Denton who had covered a song of theirs the week before  (she sang beautifully), Casse, a legendary enthusiastic lad (lading it up on the piano), Paul a friend of theirs who played some acoustic guitar with killer bvs, and their super super engineer and producer Chris Coulter.

Arcane Roots

they are all a super hard working and easy going lot, i salute them all and cant recommend their music enough.

random fact, all the members of Arcane Roots are left handed *cue X-Files theme tune and maybe an autopsy or two

here is the video completed!

Tom Rogerson plays Cramm by Three Trapped Tigers

here is the first clip of the sessions i filmed with Tom Rogerson of Three Trapped Tigers over summer on the ‘Play Me, I’m Yours‘ pianos.

hopefully there will be more up soon.

Max Klein has just joined the HoS blog!

Greetings folks,

I’ve finally joined the HoS blog. Very happy to be here and I shall be joining in on writing cool stuff up here over time.

I’ll probably be posting lots of gnarly gear info posts for all you gear freaks out there! Always happy to answer questions and help people out, so get in touch – don’t be lazy!

The photo above is a classic oldie from Hong Kong sometime in the 90s when we were all kids skateboarding. I believe Ash took the photo and that person in the background is Dexter Carrington from the tv show Dexpedition. What’s crazy is that Hong Kong is the kindof place where you will probably only know someone for a year or so of their life before moving on, yet somehow we’re all still pretty good friends – go team!

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Ah. So I’ve recently just got a track released on wreckhead records, it is called ‘Destroy the Dancefloor’. It’s a pretty hard driving electro tune and for sale on itunes!

Arch Stanton are back from hibernation

Arch Stanton are looking to record two new tunes, some filmed performances, master a sound track, and generally get back into action. they were the first band i properly recorded in 2006 while still at university, two of their members made House of Strange possible, and they are back from their beds to raise money for a bunch of new projects. you can help them out here.

have a listen to their first 2 albums

Arch Stanton ii

Arch Stanton i

recorded at House of Strange Studios by Ash Gardner and mastered by Max Klien

House of Strange featured on THE 405

The loveliest people The 405 have done a feature on the House of Strange. they came down to film/interview during a recording session with Tawny Owl a month or two ago and it was my first filmed interview, i hope i dont look like a dork.

watch the video HERE

i think they capture the atmosphere of the place wonderfully. thanks alot to George Nindi, Louis Nindi, and Laura Rankin who shot and edited the piece. look out for a new project they have filmed and edited by @schreiberland