The Breakdown
Capricorn Coast band Tidal Peak , essentially the work of musician/producer Kyle Lacko, has just released an expansive, glittering album entitled ‘Treasureville’. It’s a collection of sparkling gems that seem to take inspiration from the glittering sun-soaked environment where it was written.
Opening with ‘Capricorntown’, the geographic connection is evident. A swell of synths and strings create a vast open vista before gently delayed guitars spring up as a percussive beat builds up, underpinning the euphoric lift. Lacko’s vocals are bittersweet, way back in the mix, but with a soaring melody. It is a cinematic blast with more muscular distorted guitars rising through the shimmer. The song reaches a shoegaze apotheosis as guitar etch contrails in the horizon and the songs stretches and bends over the seven minutes, changing in light and reflections like the course of a day. It is the most mesmerising and immersive track to start proceedings, elements of New Order in the lengthy instrumental interludes.
‘Flowing’ emulates a bubbling stream, softly flowing with percussive eddies and whirls and Lacko’s dreamy reflective vocals shimmering across the surface, trace elements of the sort of electronic deep-seated yearning that OMD exhibit. ‘The Here And The Now’ continues this hypnotic style with its gentle wall of sound and the melancholy, yearning vocals with a more up tempo bounce.
‘Mariner Shells’ continues with the thematic elements of the album that ties it together, referencing things aquatic and coastal, the synth swell sparkling like sunlight off the ocean and the bass pulsing like tidal waves to the fore: hypnotic and insistent. It’s a six minute dreamy reverie.
‘Frangipani Drive’ wakes you up from the reverie: a motorik beat that drives the pace with the plonking instruments pattering along the surface. If comparisons were to be made, you cannot help but think of OMD again, with a touch of Talk Talk: intelligent evocative synth pop augmented by gentle haunting melodies.
‘Coasting’ glitters and shimmers in the firmament like an aurora folding and moving amongst the stars. It is an ethereal track that is immersive and enchanting and filled with a dream pop/shoegaze aura.
The sound is like a delicious blend of Cocteau Twins and Ride, luscious and rich sounds with distant dreamy vocals crossing the gently rippling surface of instrumentation, featuring an ambulant melodic bass and crystalline guitars.
Written after a hiatus, Lacko says the song deals with::
…the slow, emotive buildup of emotions when you return to somewhere you haven’t been for years, and you’re trying to figure out if you’re still relevant or regarded in any capacity while you’re slowly coasting through your own life. It felt like the perfect track to lead as the first single,running parallel with my own experience of returning to release new music after so many years being away from it all.
The delivery exquisitely captures an essence of yearning and melancholy, as well as a sense of geography – restless coastal shores and the vast oceans off the eastern coast of Australia.
‘Wilderness Years’ exhibits the same sort of ear The Lightning Seeds have for bittersweet melodies with an anthemic glow, this is a glorious track borne on a pounding percussion and instruments that are rich and luscious.
The track reflects the geography of his home, a sequel in a sense to preceding track ‘Coasting’ – seeped in nostalgia as Lacko sings pining for that same girl and realising that through the years, we’ve all changed/’cause nothing ever stays the same.
‘A Deeper Seashore’ enters with a little bit more steel, a driving pace and yearning layers of vocals delivering the most immersive melodies. The references to the album title is applied to the beauty of the landscapes and sea: a paean seemingly to the glorious environment which is as breathtaking as the song itself. It’s a delicious seven minute ode to beauty and nature that sweeps over you like a rising tide and then lifts you high. ‘Salem Court’ has urgent arpeggiated, delayed guitars that set a contrapuntal force to the dreamy vocals and synths.
Final track ‘Lammermoor’ is a nine minute finale that sets off with an almost funky beat and dreamy vocalisations that haunt the periphery. Over its length it changes direction, freewheeling in the vast open skies like a glorious Albatross, veering in unexpected directions.
This is a magnificent, immersive album that sparkles and shimmers like a mirage in the desert, and yet manages to capture the environment of coastal Australia, bleached white beaches, blinding sunshine, pounding endless oceans with an added thread of heart ache and yearning interwoven into the notes.
‘Treasureville’ is out now and available to stream here and download through the link above, with a CD and cassette version available.
Recorded and produced at home with all instruments by Lacko himself, the album took more than five years to produce and release, with the tracklisting being scrapped twice due to Lacko’s self-admitted perfectionism “ramping up” during the album’s recording. Utilising an array of synthesizers, drum machines, guitars, effects pedals and his own voice as an instrument, Lacko sought to make ‘Treasureville’ a defining, hazy statement. The album continues Tidal Peak’s exploration of DIY dreampop and shoegaze, while venturing further into progressive pop territory with an emphasis on meticulous studio experimentation and seaside imagery.
Feature Photograph: Alex Cossu
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