One dollar from each Falling Star Castle cassette purchase will be donated to 350.org, a global movement dedicated to solving the climate crisis.

album description from Single Girl Married Girl:

For The last 11 years, Lane Barrington, along with a generous handful of friends, has been recording and performing as The Ocean Floor. He has explored and moved through a tremendous amount of musical territory on four previous albums and shows only signs of growth and continued experimentation. The new line-up of Shannon Steele (Typhoon), Holland Andrew (AU, Like A Villain), William Wienert, and Patrick Barrett brings a warmth and sensitivity to the Complexity and nuance of these ten songs.

Falling Star Castle is an amazing daydream patchwork of shifting ideas and moods; a continuous flow of images and tiny, gauzy glimpses of love. The Ocean Floor's characteristic gift of orchestration is especially evident on songs like "The Night You Were Born" (which is centered around a full string quintet, piano, and some spare percussion) and "Big Screen TV" (alternating between brass, string, and woodwind sections and cycling through natural and manipulated drum recordings). Unlike previous records, there is little guitar present. The Songs are mostly built around the drums and percussive elements, with the core instruments (violin, upright bass, clarinet, and Wurlitzer) layered over one another in a beautiful procession of parts. The vocal arrangements are no less inspired, as one can hear in the close harmonies and perfectly blended voices of "Fantasy of Flight" and "Maze Left In The Rain".

Falling Star Castle was recorded in Lane Barrington's Basement bedroom in Portland, OR. The piano was recorded by Skyler Norwood at Miracle Lake Studios (Horse Feathers). It features performances from Andrew Miller (Firs Of Prey) and Jen Grady (You Are Plural).

Falling Star Castle [2012]
Pop Quiz [2010]
Tele V. Cheeseburger Split [2008]
Tall Tales and Small Tales [2007]

released 27 November 2012

Falling Star Castle is the story of a person from beginning to end. A person falling into episodes of imagination, confrontations with imagined perfection, and meetings with other imaginers. It should also be noted that one dollar for every sale of this record will go to benefit 350.0rg - an organization helping to stop our very real climate crisis.

released 13 July 2010

Musicians: Lane Barrington, Shannon Rose Steele, Sean Moore, Alexi Erenkov, Richard Laws, Russel Harrison, Sean Barry, Andrew Miller

Paintings: Johanna Wright

“Pop Quiz”, the fourth full-length album by The Ocean Floor, attempts to alter the relationship between the artist and listener by not assuming the person with the microphone has all the answers. There are seventy-five questions asked over the course of 11 heavily orchestrated songs meant less to conjure up specific ideas than to remain open to the apparent lack of any real knowledge we may feel we own. Musically, the album connects disparate elements from 20th century music history in a substantially more cohesive way than previous releases. Tiptoeing between scenes of intimate folk-song sing-alongs, gritty disco clubs, a futurist synthesizer funeral, and American weddings of the 1950’s, the songs paint a landscape of the apparent universe, implying the holes within. Jazz flute, ukelin, string bass, clarinets, violins and analog synths all lend a hand to create a dynamic and unique listening experience. “Pop Quiz” manages to leave the listener with a joyous wonder for the incomprehensibility of what we call the universe without the need for a metanarrative storyteller. It suggests we find contentedness within the uncertainties of life, rather than continuing the unending search for a definitive answer.

released 25 November 2008

Musicians: Lane Barrington with help from Shannon Rose Steele, Brandon Laws, and Richard Laws

The three songs contributed address and deal with loss in three different ways. This batch definitely has a much more simple, immediate feel to them. The Ocean Floor toured the East coast with Tele V. Cheeseburger and Ryland Bouchard in support of this release.

released 27 March 2007

In 2005 and 2006 Lane Barrington and Sean Moore recorded this album at Sean's house. None of the songs are related enough for it to be seen as anything but a collection of short stories, and that's what it is. Fifteen musical short stories... These songs are fleshed out with traditional instruments such as (clarinets, trumpets, trombones, violins, banjo, stand-up bass, and jazz drum-kits) as well as makeshift instruments such as (washing machine bass drum, "tom"pani's, dad's soft knock at the door, finger-lip bubbles, etc.). Some of the topics explored in the songs are the differences and similarities between humans and all other members of the animal kingdom, Paul McCartney's fall from grace as a capable decision maker, the decisions we must make between personal happiness and unselfishness, the difficulty of knowing you may survive a journey but you may also witness the collapse and downfall of your companion, and the ability to love someone so much that you live to make them a better person and not necessarily to love you.

Releases

Toyland
My Shelf
How I Felt Last Summer
In San Francisco and
Everywhere Else
Inner Ear

"Toyland"

KH Studios 2012

video: Kurtis Hough
arrangements and vocals Lane Barrington
lyrics Glen MacDonough: from Victor Herbert’s operetta, Babes of Toyland (1903)
thank you Dave Yeager

"My Shelf"

KH Studios 2012

video: Kurtis Hough
story: Lane Barrington, Kurtis Hough
creative direction: Daphne Jane Faison, Kurtis Hough
helping hands: Lane Barrington, Daphne Jane Faison, Holland Andrews, William Wienert, Shannon Rose Steele
paper artists: Katsuyuki Shiga, Ayumu Saito, Haruki Nakamura, Erico, Kamikara
extra hands: Lauren Garrette, Amelia Johnson, Christof Henrickson, Quilty Kim, Eva Schifter, Andrew Miller

"How I Felt Last Summer"

KH Studios 2012

video: Kurtis Hough
live at Mississippi Studios, Portland OR (Aug 2012)

this song is a b-side from The Ocean Floor's "Falling Star Castle" release, you can stream or download the studio version for free from soundcloud.com/theoceanfloor

"In San Francisco and Everywhere Else"

Get Collected (Michael Dellinger

video: Michael Dellinger
live in Bethel's beach, outside Auckland, New Zealand.

"Inner Ear"

IsaacRoyffe.com

video: Isaac Royffe
from The Ocean Floor's album "Tall Tales and Small Tales"

Videos

February 01, 2013:

For The Good Times

Even in the wake of our current band implosion we actually have a release more new than our new release (Falling Star Castle). We are pleased to announce that our cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “For The Good Times” (anchored by a jaw droppingly intimate lead vocal by Shannon) is available at piaptk.com. It was created as part of a double-lp (vinyl only!) tribute to Kris by the very unique and inspiring People In A Position To Know recordings. Other artists on this compilation are none other than R. Stevie Moore, Little Wings, Calvin Johnson, Ohioan, and Golden Boots.

The Ocean Floor has been a revolving door of musicians assisting Lane Barrington for the past nine years. Started in Florida in 2001, The Ocean Floor began as just Lane. Since then the line-up has swelled to as many members as eight. The newest iteration of the live group is a quintet featuring Shannon Steele (Typhoon) on violin, Holland Andrews (AU, Like A Villain,) on clarinet, William Wienert on Stand-up bass, Patrick Barrett on drums and Barrington on Wurlitzer; with four of the five sharing harmony duties. Lane has also spent his time playing drums with Hosannas and Machinedrum.

"Tall Tales & Small Tales" – the group's third record was released in 2007 by Swim Slowly Records - Ryland Bouchard’s (The Robot Ate Me) label. The Ocean Floor also released a split cassette with Tele v. Cheeseburger in November of 2008. In the summer of 2010 The Ocean Floor released it’s first vinyl release – Pop Quiz – featuring paper inserts handmade by the band using flowers from the garden – put out by Electricity and Lust (Olympia, WA). It attempted to alter the relationship between the artist and listener by not assuming the person with the microphone has all the answers. There are seventy-five questions asked over the course of 11 heavily orchestrated songs meant less to conjure up specific ideas than to remain open to the apparent lack of any real knowledge we may feel we own.

In the spring of 2011 The Ocean Floor brought their music to New Zealand for a very rewarding and sensational spring tour. 2012 has been a year of endless possibilities and hard work to see a brand new musical vision come to life. Falling Star Castle – an album of startlingly darker and more mature thematic concepts and sounds – will be released on November 27th 2012 by Single Girl Married Girl Records with a U.S. tour shortly after. With a new emphasis on drum sound sculpting and monophonic sound collaboration, The Ocean Floor’s previous reliance on the guitar is a thing of the past – it being virtually absent from the album. This is an album that has a very definite but impressionistic tale and single narrator from start to end but there is no requirement to even get further than the string arrangements and vocal melodies. A new e.p. of songs recorded live at Olympia’s legendary Dub Narcotic Studio in June should provide a very raw complement to the year and a half of meticulous creation Falling Star Castle is.