Polaroide: Bowin' Off.

Polaroide play the B Lounge at the Dome Nightclub on Thursday night.

Considering their name, it’s hardly surprising Polaroide set out to capture something visual and cinematic within their sound.

“It’s about colour and it’s about cinema,” bassist Dan confirms. “It’s about emotions and layered textures. We try to keep most of our visual imagery not too far from the musical imagery. We’re trying to create an identity through our music.”

“We try to let people form their own idea of the image of Polaroide,” drummer Rich continues. “It’s through the music and whatever images we can associate. It’s got an earthy feel. Some of it can be kinda straight forward, but we like to move around in our styles. You can basically follow our music directly, but there’s a lot of weaving through each of the sounds.”

Although the band can often be seen on guitar pop bills, they try not to be fall strictly into the pop canon. Dan explains.

“They’re not exactly straight down the line pop songs or anything like that. There’s a pop influence to what we do. I think it’s driven by pop music, but a the same time we need to be more diverse and we try to pull pop apart and create something that isn’t really pop. The formulas are always there in certain ways, but it’s no something you would think of as a pop song. I think the dynamics are a lot more efficient than a lot of pop music.”

The song you hear when you catch the band live is something that has evolved throughout the time they have spent together, rather than simply having gone into the band with a certain set of ideals in mind.

“It evolved a lot because we all came from different backgrounds musically,” says Rich. “We had to make sure we saw each other eye to eye and put together out own sense of identity as a band.”

Because of the nature of the three-piece band, Polaroide find ways to augment the sounds that would in some cases be filled by extra musicians. From twelve string guitars to textured drumming and the odd bit of transposed classical string instrument training.

“I also play electric guitar and harmonica as well as playing the bass with a bow occasionally. But not all at once,” Dan laughs. “With the bow you’re limited to just the bottom string, but it works really well. I used to play the Cello, and it works in a very similar way. You have to sit it upright vertically on my knee. It sounds really fat. It makes the whole room shake.”