Urchin Studios

2012 has so far played host to one of the busiest, not to mention most prolific periods we've ever had at Urchin; we've recorded no less than a total of 60 tracks over the first 6 weeks of the year. Phew!

However this exceptional daily average (1.428571429) songs per day for the mathematically inclined) has in now way impaired the quality of the output of the studio. Amongst others we've had the pleasure of playing host to the likes of Theme Park, Jodie Marie, Marques Toliver (more on him later) and of course Urchin favourite Lianne La Havas.

As the year draws to a close and the threat of mince pie related indigestion becomes ever more imminent, we at Urchin Studios would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. This is both a religious and secular seasonal greeting, because as well as accommodating a variety of musical requirements we also accommodate a wide variety of religious and spiritual requirements (although plans to convert the live room into a multi-faith prayer room are currently on hold).

Anyway, in the joyful spirit of Christmas (or HumanLight in the Humanist tradition) we’d like to bring you a selection of the slightly more peculiar moments that 2011 has visited upon us.

Please note: The following content may not be entirely balanced and the facts contained may have been correlated without any proper research to suit the bias of it’s author.

As anyone who’s visited Urchin Studios will testify, it is probably pound for pound the greatest recording facility ever conceived by any person ever. Within its walls no solo is too virtuosic, no ensemble performance too precognitive, no sonic achievement too technical. Dan has even occasionally been seen levitating in the control room during a particularly heady mix.

But some things are even out of Urchin’s lofty grasp, especially when you need to record a quiet cello, a grand piano and a loud drummer at the same time. That’s why Team Urchin headed for Strongroom for the tracking stage of Amber States’ second EP.

Yesterday we were very privileged to record ex-Spiders From Mars Legend Woodmansey who was playing drums on a friend’s project. Here he is back in the day with Bowie playing on The Old Grey Whistle Test:

Last week we had the pleasure of recording Scott Cousins aka Evan Jack. It was the first time we’ve worked with Scott, who is a guitar playing singer-songwriter from Wales who with his compadre Andrew Lyddon on drums make up the band.

In an Urchin first and with the spirit of “it bloody well can be done” which excites us so, we recorded the acoustic, vocals and drums at the same time. We’re happy to confirm that it can be done and is sounding great. We were obviously aided by the fact that Andrew is a delicate and sensitive musician and that fact that these two have played with each other loads and know the music intimately.