In the winter of 2005 came a creative watershed for the prairie-fire-and-brimstone, hot rod amps and double-neck guitars of The Summerlad: a commission to write and perform a piece at The High Performance Rodeo for One Yellow Rabbit. The ‘Lads blew everyone off the horizon with the guitar-orchestrated, choral-accompanied City of Noise, an ensemble piece about the day in the life of a city. Part “Peter and the Wolf”, part “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, City of Noise played for one night to a sold out audience. The response was so overwhelming that the group disappeared for two years to record the composition. Recorded in fragments, the ‘Lads fleshed out the piece with added spoken text and a growing recording confidence. With massive amounts of help from The New Gallery and their space and a whole mess of friends and relatives, City of Noise became a truly unique and exciting release.