Local alt-rock outfit, Baronaqua, are making a statement with their new EP, keeping the good things coming with some amazing album artwork and an upcoming album launch show.
“It’s unreal hey? This whole project has been amazing,” drummer Matt Armstrong says. “The artwork for the album cover, the launch art, they’re incredible and they tie in together which is really nice.”
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but visuals are a great reflection of what we get from Baronaqua’s upcoming EP, Six People in a Dream. “There’s a bit of a theme that we wanted a visual representation of. You’ve got clues on the cover there, six moons, it ties it all into one story,” Armstrong says.
Indeed, the EP itself trots along with a beautiful narrative, a story in sound where no one chapter is anyone’s particular favourite. “Everyone seems to have a different favourite, which is probably a good thing,” he continues. “It’s nice that people identify with particular tracks.
“‘On My Own’ in particular is very inspired by The Clash, with that ‘London Calling’ beat. Every song has its own unique sonic identity. Each song has a different story to tell. I think we wanted to try out different directions as well, so each song has its own genre, I would say, but not quite that ambitious.”
There is a particular kind of magic at work here. Baronaqua, as Armstrong says, have touched upon an eclectic range of influences – Sonic Youth, The Clash, and a lot of Aussie rock. Bringing together this lovely mishmash of elements of different genres works in the band’s favour and Baronaqua have very much developed a signature sound. “We’re certainly not reinventing the wheel,” Armstrong says, “But I think there’s something there that is a little different.
“When we were writing these songs, we were getting together in a dingy rehearsal space, jamming and putting riffs together. After having three or four songs that just didn’t connect in any seeming way, there was the challenge: ‘How can we make these songs link together? What’s the key? What makes these things Baronaqua?’
“We realised, ‘What if [the songs] were all different stories perceived by one person, and how can we achieve that?’ That lead to the concept of someone dreaming, someone’s gone down to sleep and someone’s having these six separate dreams, dreaming of six different lifetimes. That helped give the six unconnected songs more of a purpose as a whole. That was great when it came together at the end of the process,” Armstrong says.
In a sense, one could argue Baronaqua are adopting their own characters to tell this story. Playing in the band, playing this EP, isn’t really a personification of the trio as individuals; it’s an act to reflect this one story.
Armstrong agrees. “These songs aren’t drawing from any experiences the three of us have had, they’re definitely exercises in putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and creating a tale. Like ‘Astro’, it doesn’t have a chorus, the verse continues a story about an astronaut who’s returned from space but no longer feels like they belong on earth. Obviously, none of us have been to space, but it was an interesting emotional depth that we wanted to chase.”
That journey in investigating emotional depth is present on Six People in a Dream from the word go. Opener ‘Into Sleep’ edges towards an expectation of something completely different to what you’re offered and suddenly, you’re sucked into a massive void of unexpectedness. “It’s kind of cheeky isn’t it?” Armstrong says. “It’s a one minute piece but it’s massive. Booming drums that take a complete left turn.”
Armstrong explains that the band wanted to achieve more reflection on the EP than is first apparent. “Part of our initial mission statement was, ‘Let’s offer something unexpected of a local band doing it for the first time. Let’s do something different.’ We learnt from our success and failures and take the best parts of them and put them into this new idea.”
