Record Press: Colour

Image: Colour

Currently on the verge of releasing their debut Kafé EP, Colour are a four-piece from Liverpool travelling a soaring trajectory.

They've already racked the attention of major institutions with singles ' Strangers' and 'Nowhere' - both stirring the radiant rock cauldron with muted guitar riffs typical of their rousing, angular sound.

Ahead of a marquee date for Colour at Kendal Calling in July, we gain an insight into the band's record choices and gauge their forthcoming EP release - due Tuesday 28th June. 

First up, your record in your own words?

Kafé is our first EP and we wanted it to sound just like that: new and urgent. We start with our set opener and as an EP: lyrically it's opinionated and musically it's glitchy and layered but essentially rock driven.

One record to wake up to in the morning? 

Sting - 'Englishman in New York'. Love this track because it's heavily atmospheric and takes you straight out of a sleeping mindset and on to a Manhattan street. To me this is one of the best mainstream uses of Jazz piano and clarinet going, it’s just epic.

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By order of the court all records should be burnt, you can only keep three from your collection... 

The Beatles - 'Revolver'

The Police - 'Regatta de Blanc'

Everything Everything - 'Man Alive'

I know these are all band records and I would love to take some jazz or classical too but as three records go they cover so many different moods and soundscapes that I wouldn’t be missing much.

One for the road?

Joni Mitchell - Greatest Hits. Just like with my morning record, all Joni Mitchell songs are really atmospheric but the thing I really love is that the lyrics and chords are so complex they seem to unravel the more you listen to them. As we’re all on the road so much, that’s a really good thing, there are loads of songs and you could get lost in any one of them and come out with a better handle on vocabulary and life!

You walk into a bar and too your surprise someone is blaring your song out of the juxebox, your dreams have been realised, who is it?

Paul McCartney. I suppose I should have said the head of Universal… but I don’t think that would be as satisfying. Paul McCartney is maybe a predictable answer, but for me he was the driving force behind the Beatles at their most key time, he kept coming up with tunes that were both totally unique and different and yet with form and accessible meaning.

He also very obviously was heavily involved in production on all songs both his and Lennons - I think he would pick out some of the elements we’d worked so hard on in our arrangements.

The party is reaching a slumping, everyone is getting drunkenly prophetic - what do you put on to lift things?

Shalamar - 'A Night To Remember'. It’s loud, rhythmic, an amazingly cool song … and yet it is tongue in cheek enough to get even the most cynical people dancing. I can’t say it’s a direct influence but who doesn’t like a dance?

Probably the best album ever…

Sgt. Peppers. I’m so predictable I know! … But I don’t care! I grew up with this album in particular, I learnt 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' on the piano before Coldplay or Muse existed. It’s the type of record you can’t sit down and learn, moreover you marvel at.

As well as being able to listen to the tunes at a party - it’s like my personal tool kit of production and music. And most importantly its really experimental even though the Beatles were at the height of their power, they could have made some straight characterless pop songs like a lot of large acts now do once they’re big (Coldplay, Muse, U2) but they just kept pushing down their own track, and that’s what we want to emulate.

Colour play at Kendal Calling taking place from Thursday 28th - Sunday 31st July - Find Kendal Calling tickets 

Like this? Try our interview with Amber Arcades: From dusk till dawn in New York City

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