Last week we offered up your first listen of Dream Coast’s debut album Golden Haze, a swirling and euphoric release which felt it had been ripped straight out of another galaxy.
To celebrate the release, we tee’d up a four-way chat between Conor and Josh B from Dream Coast plus Brisbane mates Joe and Josh E from Kodiak Empire (who feature on two tracks from Golden Haze). Here’s what the lot of them talked about.
Environment, energy and escapism: Brisbane acts Dream Coast and Kodiak Empire have far more in common that what you would assume.
JOSH B: To start off, thanks for this.
JOSH E: No worries, thanks for the chance to be on the album.
JOSH B: So we we have known each other a while, I have spent time at a lot of your Brisbane gigs being your merch guy plus all the time in jam rooms over the past few years. It has definitely been great inspiration and drive to write Dream Coast stuff. I love being around you guys, seriously next level.
JOE: No worries, I can tell through listening to your album you have gone through a lot of changes musically, it is quite proggy in the arrangements and the concepts.
JOSH B: You were there right from the start when we were talking about concepts – creating music to reflect the world. The album started as a commentary but we ended up putting a lot of our personal experiences and feelings from the last 18 months into tracks. There are still elements of those themes on High-rise Smile for example.
CONOR: That was us getting quite dark by distorting the Volca Bass.
JOSH B: There are a lot of demos from that time. The album started in 2016 from creating around 100 demos over 100 days.
CONOR: It was great. We learned a lot about arranging, finding synth tones we like as well as it all being good practice from repetition of producing music.
JOSH B: We then took the best ideas and bits from demos and re-created them or combined them to create walls of sound or form full tracks. It was great fun playing with speeds and tempos.
JOSH E: When we worked on Gold Whirl last year I remember flipping the first part across time signatures and sequencing different synths to 6/8 and 4/4. Creating polyrhythmic beats can be a great way to explore new sounds and create new melodies from nothing.
CONOR: You guys are all over polyrhythms and interesting time signatures. How are your new album sessions going?
JOE: We have a few new approaches to writing. We have a permanent set-up in West End for jams with in-ears and we are basically recording everything. Interesting song arrangements are a big goal, as are putting together the best parts of our jams.
JOSH E: Being able to play back parts instantly through in-ears makes jamming a more refined process. I am currently away finishing my flight training but the set-up means hearing new material and creating here is workable.
JOSH B: The new Kodiak stuff is quite ambient, I love the soundscapes that are being created.
JOE: Definitely the post-rock influence coming through. We are liking the process of creating walls of sound to create atmosphere. We have been really focusing on creating emotion through instrumentation in this way too. I have been picturing environmental change, particularly all-encompassing nature versus destruction. We like to create contrasting moments – it’s really reflecting shades of life.
JOSH E: On inspiration, analysing music and seeing the energy from bands we have played shows with has been big for our songwriting. Sleepmakeswaves, The Contortionist and COG have been huge inspirations conceptually and sonically.
JOSH B: Your first gig with Sleepmakeswaves up on the Sunshine Coast was a great trip – great live sets from both bands. I have loved soaking up a lot of really great prog around the place. I was there for a bit at the studio for Silent Bodies in Tweed in 2016 – it was great watching Govinda work the recording console. Silent Bodies is so well produced and interestingly structured, your ‘live sound’ really translated across to the record.
JOSH E: Recording with Govinda was a great turning point for us in realising that songs have their own lives. We are liking that idea of capturing moments in time. Our songs since then have grown and changed enormously.
CONOR: I can relate, Golden Haze is a snapshot of the music of the time and our lives in a way. It’s a statement about the world as it was, at that current time. We started Dream Coast as an escapist project, creating a dream world to escape this world, I think it has been a great form of release.
JOE: There are very dark and brooding themes in both of our projects but then very real moments of release. I think showing the shades of life is very important in getting to the goal of the music where you can become lost in the sound and uplifted.
JOSH B: I agree. We wanted to show this throughout the album by having some melancholic moments that are matched with release. There is a loose narrative; us thinking about time, the beauty of the world and change. We came across the image of the Ouroboros – the snake eating its own tail – that idea of infinite slow decay or self-destruction really struck me particularly. This is something a close friend of mine was quite obsessed with too, he was also struggling with his mental health. It really made quite an impact on me visiting him a few times in hospital after a few episodes. The album was quite dark, a product of this time, but when he passed on I decided to record in a way to ‘break the cycle’, recording positively and making music as healing, mainly for myself. The album was originally going to be an infinite loop but we decided to reflect the world-view of the Clockwork Orange. It was my friend’s big inspiration, a world that keeps on spinning despite the chaos. We took this as organised chaos; the final album track is about learning to dance with that eternal snake.
CONOR: The Dream Coast is our escape, a little utopia. The long jams we have are quite cathartic too, creating walls of sound and feeling to mirror our reflections of the world through repetition of numerous loops that work together in harmony. Parts fade in and out of existence. This translated across to the album too.
JOSH E: I am really inspired by how your vision has changed yet remained very true to the goal of what you guys do. I had some idea of the album during recording, I know Gold Whirl was about the endless blur of life, the introduction to the Golden Haze.
JOE: After all of this, where is next for you guys?
JOSH B: It is exciting really, this has been a real weight off our shoulders to put the album out. We have been doing some more club-focused bits, uplifting bits of slow tech. Same process, creating ambient demos on the synths to then sequencing beats. New tracks mixed with album songs will be great fun to play in upcoming live sets.
CONOR: I am interested in continuing to create visuals for our stuff. We want to maybe do some soundtrack work or create accompanying visuals for live sets. We did get awesome retro visualisations for each album track with Dan Cordero (CASJ) in Byron Bay – that has been a great start to things. What is next for Kodiak Empire?
JOSH E: Besides work on the album, more gigs and time to test out new material.
JOE: I have also been working on a jazz album with our drummer Ben and some solo guitar compositions. Working with Art as Catharsis has been great, I have been putting on shows and getting radio service to help feature up and coming artists. We have a showcase on July 13 at the Bearded Lady, that has been keeping me busy.
CONOR: Our gig to celebrate the album launch is the next night, July 14 at the Milk Factory, also in West End.
JOE: That is great, we will be there. Keen to hear the new tracks!
JOSH B: Thank you again for this guys, really appreciate it. How do I end this conversation? Maybe by saying ‘stay gold’.
JOSH E: Yes that works – “Stay gold!”
Upcoming Gigs
Art as Catharsis showcase (artists TBA): July 13 – The Bearded Lady, Brisbane
Dream Coast: July 14 – The Milk Factory, Brisbane – Details
