Perth electronic group Crooked Colours will release their debut album, 'Vera', later this month.
With listeners already grooving to single 'Flow' and follow-up 'I Hope You Get It', keyboardist Leon De Baughn says anticipation is mounting among the band for the album's release after working on it for the past 18 months. “We got to a point where it was time for us to knuckle down and write an album,” Leon says.
“So we planned it out as best we could and it stretched out a lot longer than what we had anticipated, but we got there in the end which is the main thing. We're really excited because we've been sitting on it for a little while now so we're getting a bit antsy waiting to drop it. We're keen to get it out and get everyone's vibe on it.”
Harnessing slick production and crossing multiple styles, 'Vera' is an album that runs the gamut of electronica from upbeat, danceable pop tracks to contemplative and wandering instrumental epics, a characteristic Leon says reflects the band's musical upbringing and DIY ethos.
“We do all the production and everything ourselves so we try to keep it all in-house on those sides of things,” he says.
“We've grown up listening to the kind of music we're playing now, so it's just been a natural progression for us. We've always liked a little bit of dance, electronic and also the real indie side of things too so we tried to blend those together the best we could.
“When we start out on songs we never really have a set structure for it, so I think that's why a lot of the songs flow in different directions, because we don't try and plan it down to being a pop structure.
"Maybe 'All Eyes' is the most pop-structured song out of the album but the rest do their own thing. There's not really a verse-chorus-verse thing.”
Crooked Colours have a string of live commitments taking them to the end of the year, giving audiences plenty of chance to see the band dubbed as 'one of the hottest rising acts in electronic music today'. They take 'Vera' out for a national tour in August, before playing Yours & Owls Festival (Wollongong) in September and Spilt Milk (Canberra) in November before then heading to Europe for an end-of-year run of shows, with more to be announced.
“We try to keep things a bit more upbeat because we do have a few quite chilled-out songs,” Leon says.
"We try to bring them up a little bit. We've got a live drummer Liam [Merret-Park] so he brings the live drum element to the songs which helps a lot I think. It's good seeing a good drummer play live rather than someone DJing or just having the backing tracks.
“We've got the album coming out 23 June then we're going to tour that; we're doing a tour in August around Australia before Yours & Owls, then we do a little Europe trip in October and November, then we'll be back to do a few more festivals over the summer period, so that will keep us busy for now.”
Looking forward, Leon says the band plan to build on the momentum gained with 'Vera' and the upcoming tour by moving straight into producing their next release. “Phil [Slabber, vocalist/ guitarist] and I already have quite a few ideas down for the second album, so we don't want to have that big space in between albums,” he says.
“I think we'll try and back this one up pretty quick, so hopefully the middle of next year we'll have another one out.”
'Vera' is available 23 June.
Crooked Colours Shows
Fri 4 Aug - Karova Lounge (Ballarat)Sat 5 Aug - Corner Hotel (Melbourne)
Fri 11 Aug - Oxford Art Factory (Sydney)
Sat 12 Aug - Woolly Mammoth (Brisbane)
Thu 17 Aug - Fat Controller (Adelaide)
Fri 18 Aug - Jack Rabbit Slims (Perth)
Sat 30 Sep - Yours & Owls Festival (Wollongong)
Sat 25 Nov – Spilt Milk (Canberra)
