How would you describe your emotions about the release? 

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The record is basically everything I've done, like one big LP, so with that said its exciting to have everything all on one album. It’s a collection or a collage all on one LP.

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So you already have a few songs off the album released including your latest single, In Absentia, but without giving too much away pre-release, do you have a favourite song on the album?

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Um, that's hard! I guess when I think about it it's the song Disconnected  which came out in January, just because it was the last one that I recorded and wrote. I feel like that one I feel the closest to because it's how I was feeling towards the end of writing the last few songs and recording everything. So I guess I can relate to that one the most, and it's also the most fun to play live.

 

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Going off that, do you have a favourite lyric off the album?

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Again, the record is a collage of so many songs but… um, I have to think about that one, sorry!

 

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Haha that's okay, take your time!

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I guess on the track  In Absentia, there's a part and it's hard to hear what I'm saying. I just say "hollow"; it's super reverbed out and for some reason that part and the word hollow would probably sum up the record the best.

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That word has so many meanings and emotions behind it, I feel you.

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Can you describe the album in five words and what people can expect from it? 

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I wrote it within like two years spread out, so I guess "collage" is a good word again. There's a lot of ambient effects so a lot of reverb, delays and modulation. That kinda sets the feeling while listening to it. I think the title Velvet Spirit too, it wasn't pre-planned how that came to be the album name but it feels really ghostly and atmospheric and I feel like that sums up the record.

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Yeah! Absolutely, your songs really do give off that vibe. So, you're releasing the record via Good Eye Records in New York. That's super cool! Tell me a bit about that process.

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When I first formed Cathedral Bells it was basically just an online thing. I put up a song in August 2018 and then reached out to three labels and Good Eye was one of them. I ended up working with Good Eye because we had a conversation about doing singles and eventually a vinyl release and I was really interested in doing that. Having it all on vinyl now, it feels really good. It means a lot, to have all the songs from the EP and new songs all on one album. The EP did really good, it got a lot of exposure so I was definitely down to do the vinyl. We played New York last week and stayed at Michael's (Good Eye Records owner) apartment in Brooklyn, and also in July last year we played a couple shows over there. And I guess here we are now with the LP.

 

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That's so super exciting. 

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Yeah, it's cool to have the relationship with the label and his fiancé works with him too so she definitely helps out a lot. As a team they do a lot together with the label. Also, Aaron is kind of a new member as well and he actually comes from Good Eye Records from another band. It's pretty surreal he was on the same label and now he lives so close by. It's all come together and it's a proud feeling for sure.

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Wow, yeah. Awesome. So on your sound again, for those that have never come across dream-pop as a genre, how would you explain it to them?

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When people listen to it and they don’t normally listen to dream-pop, they kinda say it's 80's sounding,  or it sounds spacey or even new-wave. So artists like The Cure or Joy Division, sometimes people who don’t listen to dream-pop can connect to those artists. I feel like especially the drum sounds I use for this project have an 80's vibe too.

 

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Love it, love 80's. Spacey would definitely be a word I'd use to describe your stuff. How about your inspirations, are there any dream-pop artists you listen to? 

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I try to listen to lots of different stuff so I don’t get stuck in the genre. There's definitely a lot of cool bands… Bathrobe  is a band from Portland who's super cool, and a band from Chicago I recently found out about called Teen Blush, a younger kid doing dream-pop. And then there's another band that’s part of a label called 'Spirit Goth' in New York, they put out a lot of  low-fi dream-pop kinda stuff and the owner has a band called Castle Beat; that’s a huge inspiration to what I'm creating with Cathedral Bells. It's really cool to not just do a bedroom-pop band or whatever and have other elements to the music scene like he does.

 

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I'm looking those up right now! I think in Australia we have Vast Hill who are super low-fi bedroom-pop. And then we also have Vera Blue who's like synth-pop kinda stuff. Really groovy.

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Oh yeah, I've heard of her! Cool!

 

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Yeah! She's awesome. I actually had the opportunity to photograph her at a show recently.

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That's pretty neat! I think to be able to do these kinda things for artists, it definitely keeps it going. Without people like you there wouldn’t really be much else I guess (laughter).

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Thank you! I love being able to call it my job. And your job is awesome too. Do you have a favourite part about playing your music live?

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Yeah, I feel like the live is pretty similar to the recordings because of the backing tracks. From when I first formed it to now with Aaron it's grown a lot. Aaron gets it, we click, we're able to get the ideas. What I like about how it is right now is the sequence of it, especially incorporating the synthesiser into it, I'm able to sequence the tracks and hold the chords and blend songs together to create nice transitions. It feels more legit? I don't know. It just works really well because of how we're adding extra instruments on top of the tracks. It just flows really well! Each song flows into another so I like that about what we're doing.

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