It wasn’t on Angus & Julia Stone’s bingo card to be coming together to create music again so soon, but life is strange that way.
The duo’s new album ‘Life Is Strange’ is set to walk hand-in-hand with the release of the brand-new game ‘Life Is Strange: True Colours’, providing snippets of a bigger musical canvas to be experienced by the player.
The album is set to drop this Friday (20 August) alongside its lead single ‘Love Song’, while the game – the fifth instalment in the ‘Life Is Strange’ series – releases on 10 September.
The series has won more than 20 awards since its 2015 debut, boasting a player base of 20 million. Like the music Angus & Julia Stone have crafted for it, the game explores the richness and complexity of love between siblings, families and communities.
“There's always going to be this common thread that runs through all our songs, which is that at the bottom of everything is love,” Angus says. “It always comes back to love, and things coming from within your heart. When all else fails, love will be the thing that conquers.”
‘Life Is Strange’ was created over the course of a few years, and covers new sonic territory – vocal samples, bristling electronics, string-led tracks, funereal dirges, crystal-clear pop and emotive ambience.
“I really like this record because it's a real mix of the old and the new,” Julia describes. “I can hear how, on this record, we weren't afraid to try, to follow our noses and not to force any direction that it went. It didn't matter that there was a really folky song next to a really dancy song. I can hear it feeling very free.”
In the context of the game of the same name, the soundtrack takes the player by hand, guiding them through.
“Things in our lives keep happening that bring us back together without us planning,” Angus says. “It's almost like the universe pulling us, calling us, back together.”
'Life Is Strange' by Angus & Julia Stone is out 20 August. The game, ‘Life Is Strange: True Colours’ is out 10 September.
