The sextet’s album Dance Moves, released last month, is quite a departure from those roots as a technology themed parody band, with an introspectively gloomy sound and emotionally charged lyrics.
“I was in Berlin visiting my girlfriend, and I stayed with her in her apartment while she was working. I just had a guitar and my laptop and wrote pretty much all of the songs,” says Lacey. “All the songs were written within a month or two, so it was a time and place thing. It was mainly long distance relationship stuff, and living across the world and being anxious and worried and not knowing what’s going to happen next. That’s pretty much what all the songs are about.”
After returning to Melbourne, the album process began and, though much of the album was recorded in Lacey’s bedroom, the slick record sounds nothing like a home production. The tracks are smooth and gentle, sadly romantic and musically cohesive, something that Lacey attributes to the band’s saxophonist Liam ‘Snowy’ Halliwell, also of the Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch.
“Snowy produces and mixes and masters all of the stuff as well. He’s extremely good at mixing badly recorded stuff. All of the Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch stuff that he does is done at home, and he’s really good at getting the most out of it,” says Lacey.
No matter how lo-fi the recording techniques used were, Dance Moves has been met with positive reviews, particularly thanks to Lacey’s crooning delivery and melancholy vibes. The band are profoundly unique, not just for their sound but also in their quirky imagery and humour. The video for In Blue Skies features the band not only matching Miley Cyrus by licking a hammer, but one upping her by passionately making out with one, as well as a variety of inanimate household objects, including a toaster and basketball.
“Because we have very little money between us all, and we have very good friends who are filmmakers, we usually just go to them and ask if they’ll help us do a clip. We can’t give them much money, but we let them take full creative control. So with the In Blue Skies clip, half the band was very hesitant and really nervous about making out with objects, but I guess it was something we had to do to get the clip done,” says Lacey.
As the project continues to grow and morph, Lacey continues to harness the Cool Sounds’ idiosyncrasies and push their boundaries. This takes form both on stage – where he prepares nonsensical scripts for the entire band to read from in between songs – and on future records.
“For a lot of other people in the band, Cool Sounds is the side project, or another band. But for me, Cool Sounds is definitely a main project. It’s the only band where I write songs, it’s my baby, and it’s definitely my main focus,” says Lacey.
BY CLAIRE VARLEY
