This 70s-ish psych-rock group go dystopian on their latest single.
Giuliana Frontini, Cohen Wylie, Stuart Downie, and brothers Collin and Justyn Horlick are The Crowleys: a kaleidoscopic psych-rock five-piece from Hamilton, Ontario.
The band describes their style as equal parts fresh, clean, dirty and haggard- with a touch of dream pop. Their latest single "Lampshade" takes on a futuristic approach, but a future on the brink of dystopian collapse.
"Stuart wrote "Lampshade" back in 2018," said Justyn Horlick. "He brought it to the band pretty much fully formed and we all learnt our respective parts and adjusted them to make them our own. Every song we make has a different journey. Sometimes we jam and come up with songs collectively, other times one member brings in the beginnings of a song or even a clear vision for one, and we workshop it until it feels like us."
The single was pretty fleshed out by the time Downie introduced it to the band, the only changes came in the form of an extended and repeated chorus.
"Initially the lyrics for "Lampshade" weren’t always grim, and ironically the original title for the demo created was simply “Happy”," said Horlick. "The song was all about finding a nest to roost in and wanting to live by a river, but a line Stuart wrote early on eventually changed the emotions felt to the music. It was, “You said you’d always die by this river, now that it’s dried, will you live forever?”, and it sparked a different narrative in his head- of deep melancholy and romance. He started writing about lovers in a wasteland together, and how their plans to roost disappeared as everything fizzled to dystopia. Eventually the song came together following this defiantly romantic couple simply surviving, being contrasted by a look into the lives of the wealthy and powerful whose decisions allowed the end of days."
The band has been recording the singles leading up to their eventual album release at Threshold Recording Studio, owned by Michael Keire.
"Our guitar player Cohen has worked at Threshold for six years now, so we’ve done all of our recording and mixing there since our first single, “Fane Jonda”," said Horlick. "The recording process for “Lampshade” was a bit more of an organic one. The drums were tracked to an MCI tape machine which is usually our first step, followed by the bass. From there we started adding all the layers to the song; synth, stereo guitar, acoustic guitar, and percussion. A lot of these parts were played by both Cohen and me. It was a fluid sense of, "I have an idea for a new layer, let’s lay it down." The last thing to be tracked was the vocals, which can be a tricky task when a lot of layers have been added to the song already. Giuliana went for a little bit of a crooning sound, which lends itself to the song wonderfully. This is something different for us, but we loved it!"
Wylie and Michael Keire got down to the mixing, then sent it off to LA where mastering engineer Brian Lucey finished it off. The band hopes their listeners enjoy the track, and get pumped for their upcoming full-length release.
"We want them to think, “I really like that song,” then listen to it on repeat, then we want them to fall in love with us and listen to everything we put out!" said Horlick. "But really- whatever they take away from the song is up to them, we put a lot of love and effort into our songs and believe that will resonate with the listener, but how it makes them feel is beyond our control. We hope it sounds like a nicely polished Crowley’s song, and that it, along with our first single “Somnia”, gets people excited for our debut full-length!"
You can help support The Crowleys by streaming their music, following their socials linked below, and donating to their Bandcamp.
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Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=the%20crowleys