{"id":12601,"date":"2023-11-03T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=12601"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:46:31","slug":"space-jam-sundayclub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2023\/11\/03\/space-jam-sundayclub\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Jam: sundayclub\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Courtney Carmichael and Nikki St. Pierre in their studio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

by Mike Thiessen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sleeping is, without a doubt, the secondary purpose of Courtney Carmichael\u2019s Beausejour bedroom. For the past several years, it has functioned primarily as the practice space and recording studio of sundayclub, an alternative-dream pop duo comprised of Carmichael and Nikki St.Pierre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

sundayclub has spent the past several months recording their debut self-titled album, much of it in this space. \u201cWe honestly spent most of the summer down here, not in the sun,\u201d laughs Carmichael. \u201cWe did a lot of hibernation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technical aspect of the music is absolutely crucial to sundayclub, as anyone who\u2019s seen them do their own live sound at shows will have realized. St.Pierre, who has been recording since he was thirteen years old, wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. \u201cEvery single point of the recording chain is optimized and well-thought-out to be exactly what we need it to be,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guitar built by St.Pierre is a central feature of the band\u2019s new record. \u201cIt has a sound to it that I don\u2019t think you could get [with anything else],\u201d Carmichael says. \u201cAs soon as he plays something on that guitar, it draws me in, and I automatically feel like I\u2019m compelled to write something.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt sounds like me,\u201d agrees St.Pierre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Their Line 6 Helix modeler is also instrumental to their sound \u2013 almost everything the band uses is run through it, both in the studio and when playing live. \u201cEverybody we play with seems to be mesmerized by the Helix,\u201d says Carmichael. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For St.Pierre, it allows him to get the exact sound he wants. \u201cThere are a million effects on this thing,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I use four. It\u2019s the same four every time.\u201d The day St.Pierre nailed down these four effects, after months of experimentation, was the day sundayclub\u2019s sound really came together, in their opinion. \u201cI stopped using it like a modeler and started treating it like hardware,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Universal Audio\u2019s LUNA is sundayclub\u2019s DAW of choice, with everything run through the Universal Audio API console, an emulation of the sound desk used by Prince, Fleetwood Mac, and Radiohead. sundayclub keeps the mixing simple, though. \u201cI think with our dense mixes and arrangements, it would be really hard to make it work if the workflow wasn\u2019t fast,\u201d says St.Pierre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One piece of gear essential to sundayclub\u2019s upcoming album which does not reside in their basement studio is the Mexican P-bass of Kris Ulrich, with whom the band has been working extensively \u2014 anything not recorded in sundayclub\u2019s basement space was done at Ulrich\u2019s studio. The duo says that Ulrich, who they met at the 2022 Folk Fest Young Performers Program, has played a major role in increasing their confidence in their own work, as well as in laying down some thoroughly satisfying bass riffs on the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo is excited to put out the new album, slated for a spring 2024 release, but glad to have postponed coming out with music for such a long time. \u201cWe didn\u2019t ever feel like the songs fully represented us, and we didn\u2019t feel like they were good enough to be released,\u201d says Carmichael. \u201cI don\u2019t think we had figured out how work, and we were still in the process of discovering our sound.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of this discovery process happened in this very bedroom studio over the course of the past year. \u201cAll of that indecision and jumping back and forth \u2026 it was all done in here,\u201d says St.Pierre. \u201cI haven\u2019t really thought about that before, but this space is everything.\u201d Carmichael agrees \u2013 \u201cI think the most important thing about a space is being comfortable, and we\u2019re both very comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mike Thiessen Sleeping is, without a doubt, the secondary purpose of Courtney Carmichael\u2019s Beausejour bedroom. For the past several years, it has functioned primarily as the practice space and recording studio of sundayclub, an alternative-dream pop duo comprised of Carmichael and Nikki St.Pierre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13113,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601\/revisions\/13113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}