Five Years!

It’s been over 5 years since setting up the studio and 3 years since the last Blog post, so I thought I’d do a quick roundup of some highlights of the last half decade!

Baba Brinkman

Early on, I did a remix of a track called ‘Can’t Stop’ for New York based rapper, and long-time collaborator, Baba Brinkman – an intellectual philosophical rap about free will. A couple of years later, it was featured in a cool video – check it out!

Can’t Stop Remix (feat Mariella) – Baba Brinkman Music Video

Workshops

I was lucky enough to receive a grant from Creative BC to host a series of writing and recording workshops. The goal was to bring together people from different walks of life and musical genres, and focus on writing a song in a weekend, including recording a demo, with the emphasis being on collaboration, and leaning into the process of writing something quickly, with strangers! 

The first session was a sellout, with participants aged 17 to 70, splitting into 3 groups to collaborate, write and record. 

The second session was a women only workshop for International Women’s Day, also a sellout! 

The third session was later in March 2020, a Youth workshop during Spring Break, but as news of a potential Covid virus spread, interest in the workshop was lower. That said, two extremely talented 12 year old girls attended, and they wrote and recorded a couple of really great songs. It was amazing to watch their confidence grow day by day (we had to hold the last two days via Zoom as lockdown hit right in the middle!)

The final workshop was in August 2020 and while there were only two attendees (still in the midst of Covid times), something very special sparked from it. Two people who had attended different earlier workshops signed up, and the three of us were on fire, writing and recording three songs in one weekend. We all gelled so well that we decided to form a band called Bae Baracus! Here’s the cover from that first release written during the workshop.

Bae Baracus

That August 2020 workshop sparked a magical creativity, and over the next 4 years, we got together intermittently to record and release. Even though we’ve only been in the studio together for the equivalent of less than 3 weeks, we’ve released 3 EPs, 3 singles, and a full length album. We had a ton of fun putting together lo-fi videos, and have an impressive 10 music videos to our name so far – check them out here:

We also took some of the songs to the stage, performing live a couple of times in 2024…We’re planning on more live shows and a new release for 2025.

Kinnie Starr

Kinnie is a phenomenal artist with an impressive 30 year musical catalogue to her name. It just so happened she lived very close to the studio (she since moved off Coast) and we met in person and discussed a collaboration. Then of course, Covid lockdown changed everything, but that didn’t stop us – we co-wrote and co-produced ‘Win or Lose’ remotely, only getting together to track a lead vocal and acoustic guitar session. That song went so well, we also collaborated on 3 more singles, and have a full-length album in the can, which will hopefully hit the streams soon! 

sarah noni

I was delighted to welcome Sunshine Coast singer Sarah Noni to the studio for a couple of sessions, one recording killer bassist Arista Hawkes, and another recording drums and bass, all under the expert guidance of producer Elisa Pangsaeng.

JULIA SOUND

Covid proved to be an incredibly busy, productive and creative time, sparking yet another personal project. I had a number of beats and song seeds, and one by one started to flesh them out, many of them featuring different female singers or rappers. One thing led to another, and there are now three albums under that artist profile, and several videos. 

I recently played some of the songs live, and have another album in the works, as well as some live shows for 2025

EDZI’u

I was hired for a few projects for the Producers Lounge, and during one of those I discovered an incredible artist called Edzi’u. I cold-called to see if they’d be interested in applying for a Vancouver Music Fund demo grant, and they said yes! We applied, we got the grant, and we collaborated so well that Edzi’u brought their album ‘Potlach in the Box’ to me to finish with additional production and mix, as well as a very cool EP called Tunnel Vision. Check out Edzi’u!!

audio books

Over the last 18 months I’ve also been contacted by some major book publishers to record audio books, which has been a fascinating addition to the client roster:

Elizabeth Ross (authors notes) for ‘Silver Blonde’ (Penguin Random House)

Naomi Klein for her best seller ‘Doppelganger’ (Macmillan Publishing)

Robert Moor ‘On Trails’ (Authors version, Simon & Schluster)

video game audio

I’ve been working in game audio since 2007, so it’s no surprise that games have kept me extremely busy too. I spent 6 years working on Age of Empires IV, with the bulk of those years being remote for Relic Entertainment right here from The Sound Garden Retreat. It was a huge project, a labour of love, and included working with composers, orchestras, choirs, musicians, engineers and mixers from all over the world.

Here’s a post I wrote about the work:

The critics and players loved the music and I also won an award for my work: Best Score/Soundtrack at the Canadian Game Awards 2022. 

looking ahead

Honestly, having a blog is a bit of a misnomer, as I update it so rarely, so if you’d like more regular bitesize updates, Instagram is probably the best place: https://www.instagram.com/thesoundgardenretreat/

I’m really excited for next year, I have some cool things in the pipe for 2025, and can’t wait to see what the next 5 years at the studio brings! 

Thanks to all my clients and collaborators – Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Holidays, and all the best to every musician, singer, writer, engineer and producer for 2025!

(2025 goal – learn to take a decent selfie)