After The Buzz

Canyons arrived with an in-born hype. From the outset, there was an intoxicating whisper of mystique and excitement surrounding their work. Before they'd released so much as a debut album, they'd been enlisted to perform alongside international heavyweights like Boys Noize and delivered releases through cult imprints like New York's DFA. The haze of ambiguity surrounding their own record label Hole In The Sky only compounded matters.

That buzz evaporated somewhat following the release of their debut album Keep Your Dreams in 2011. Far from a disappointing production, Keep Your Dreams was favourably received both locally and abroad but, compared to the success of their Modular labelmates The Presets and Cut Copy, was still something of a non-event. Since then, the Sydney-based duo have been flying relatively under the radar.

“It's such a weird thing. It's almost impossible for me to be objective about it for me. In regards to having any proper perspective, I'm just too close to it,” Leo Thomson says of the album. “I think the mistake we made was we worried too much about it and spent too much time on it. I think, in a situation like that, regardless of what the end result is, you'll end up feeling like you put more into it than you eventually got out of it.

“That's also one of the reasons we want a more focused sound and direction for the next album,” Thomson reflects on the reception of the album. “Because I'm sure we alienated a whole bunch of listeners with the music on that record. You know, people who heard one song on the radio, liked it and then heard a completely different album than what they were expecting to hear. I'm sure people were put off a bit by that.”

That's been both Canyons gift and their curse. They're an extremely free act. Their music stretches from typical Australian indie-electro to space-rock and R'n'B. Even in their return, they can't help but showcase their confounding scope. After years of relative inactivity, Canyons are re-launching themselves with a sprawling multimedia performance art installation with Daniel Boyd at Brisbane's Asia Pacific Triennial exhibit at GoMA.

“Dan's a friend of ours from Sydney. A little while ago, he asked us if we wanted to put together some music for one of the visual installations he was doing in Sydney. We've also used some of his visuals for our live shows when we were touring for our album,” Thomson explains. “So, there was already a bit of history between us. I think we just thought it would be cool to do a specific project together.”

Still, their overall mission remains one of streamlining. The handful of years since Keep Your Dreams have been spent not only writing more considered and accessible material for their next album, but learning new instruments and approaches for their live show. Rather than attempting to once again translate the sprawl of their studio-bound songs to a live environment, Canyons are trying to bridge the two worlds with more lively material.

“We've been kind of figuring out new ways of writing music that more immediately translates to live performance, yeah,” Thomson confirms. “We're paying more attention to writing music that already has live elements to it. We're really overhauling our live set-up. That's one of the reasons our collaboration with Daniel has been so heavy-going. It's all on new equipment. It opens a lot of cool ideas, but it's a massive learning curve.”      

Canyons will be playing the following dates:

Friday 12 April - GOMA, Brisbane QLD