LUCIDBLOOM:

How has living in the Blue Mountains influenced your music and creative process?

The Blue Mountains is beautiful and mysterious, but it’s also extremely prone to natural disasters. The first chapter of LUCIDBLOOM - the 6 track EP we’ve named Calamity, came from within and between evacuations from bushfires, skies full of ash, helicopters doing water drops, disintegrating roads, inundated bridges, landslides, and of course, the pandemic lock downs, which brought a whole new level of uncertainty. Ultimately, words have crept into the songwriting that are direct reflections on these experiences. Mutual Gravity for example ‘see the plumes are rising, grey and gold…’ that’s a vivid memory walking down the street as we watched a mega fire burning over the ridge. Our creative process was fairly impacted by Covid - not being able to get together consistently is a huge challenge for momentum. Especially when the feel of the songs are so informed by the combination of live instruments and layered harmonies - so it was a slow going process to begin with, but ultimately one that let the songs come into their own over time with lots of space to listen back, reflect and rebuild. 

The video clip for 'Mutual Gravity' is visually stunning. How was it made, and what was the inspiration behind it?

We scouted the location for Mutual Gravity driving over a bridge connecting the Blue Mountains to the Hawkesbury. The bridge is infamous for being the first point of access that goes under during heavy rain. After the massive flooding event a couple years ago, the landscape there is still heavily impacted. Huge trees lay on their sides and everything has been pushed sideways by the uncanny force of rushing water, but alongside are lush green fields of new growth that are incredibly beautiful. 

The contrast between destruction and regrowth felt apt for Mutual Gravity, as opposing or complementary forces intertwined with each other. We work with a lighting artist SIRCUIT across our projects and live shows, and as the sun went down we were able to contrast these amazing silhouettes of toppled branches and landscape with layers of colour, light and smoke that made the site feel otherworldly!

We wanted to play with the overall concept of gravity, and exploring the push and pull, and these invisible tensions in the spaces around us. We had crafted distinct lighting settings, across the natural landscapes, experimenting with projections, and building a floating light bulb forest (which took an eternity to build!), but this gave us these worlds to play with, from post-disaster landscapes through to dreamy transitory states where the floating globes were like stars we were gravitating around. 

On the day itself, we found ourselves also responding to the environment and vibe on the day, and we worked with our incredible filmmaker friends Jem and Taku for creative direction and camera work, who really encouraged spontaneity and experimentation on the day. What we landed with took us beyond initial ideas and explored this otherworldly and unseen forces further, almost like we were dropped from another place like aliens, exploring these new landscapes and all the magnetizing and destructive forces surrounding us for the first time. We’re really excited to share with the world (and beyond!)