STEPPING INTO THE MINDS OF INDIGO SKY
Indigo Sky put their dreams on paper for their debut album The Wandering Mind. Whether they be of mystical lands, long days in the mountains, or the spiraling staircases of their own mids, they’re now coming to terms with the fact that they’re now handing them over for the world to hear.
Throughout The Wandering Mind they traverse land and dreamscapes, often finding themselves adventuring through rolling hills and amongst early Tame Impala and King Gizzard sonically. From the very first track the group, comprised of Michael Lanza (lead guitar), Richmond Coombs (bass guitar), AJ DeMillio (vocals and rhythm guitar), and Luke Reeves (drums), feel more free than ever before in their recorded music.
“I think it's a bit more experimental. It's a bit more high energy,” DeMillo pondered. “We started using instruments that wouldn't normally be heard on a rock album. We have an electric sitar, yeah.”
Photo by Aki Sykes
With their first project “Moonrise From Saturn” they set out to put their music into the world to prove something to others, but with this album they looked within, kept their heads down and overcame their own road bumps to prove to themselves their dream could be accomplished. Their hiccups most notably included the art that would come out alongside the release.
“With the recording process we knew what needed to be done, and like we had like a mental checklist, but like the album cover?” Reeves explained about being out of their comfort zone. “You just, you can't tell when you're done.”
“All of our concept covers we had were like just some picture that was taken in California,” DeMillio explained, a tie explored throughout the song “Velvet”, an ode to the Golden State. “We had probably like six or seven different covers for the album.”
“That was the longest part of trying to release this. Your music, you can picture something for your own music, but for everybody else, whenever that album comes out, they'll see that picture and automatically it's connected,” Lanza noted. “AJ [DeMillio] took all of the pictures.”
While Indigo Sky is letting themselves explore more, ties to the surf-psych style found on “Moonrise From Saturn” are certainly not lost. Extremely clean production carries the album’s grunge aspects – like the Pearl Jam-reminiscent solo on “So Strange” and tones explored throughout “Mind to Ease” – and finally serve justice for the band’s percussive elements. Listeners hear the full capacity of DeMillo’s voice, something previously only heard live, with range between the high highs of songs like “So Strange” and the longing lows of “The Space Between”.
Photo by Aki Sykes
Where their first project was proof of life, this project stood as proof of growth, Lanza noted that “the last EP didn't really have a theme” and that they really wanted their first official album to have “a cohesive theme”. They landed somewhere amongst escapism.
“It’s really self reflective in all different regions,” said DeMillio.
From exploring new instruments to new themes, to new states and fictional lands, Indigo Sky let themselves wander, and wonder, on their debut album.