Balconys is the new visceral experience from Angus Crook

You may have noticed that local shoegaze legends Mosaicz haven’t been popping up on gig line-ups as much over the past year. The three-piece featuring Angus Crook, Ryger Miers and Harry Skelton had been establishing quite a buzz around the local scene due to their unique sound, and, as someone who saw the group a fair few times, it was rightfully deserved.
That’s why it’s super bloody exciting that the groups lead vocalist Angus Crook has been busily working away on his solo project, Balconys. Delivering the newest soundscapes in shoegaze and psych, Balconys is a visceral experience that’s sure to take over the Melbourne gig scene.
“Balconys is a project I started off the side of Mosaicz, just to experiment with the producing side of things through recording and producing my own song,” remarks Angus. “It’s mainly all made on guitar with pedals and distortion effects and then after I have recorded the songs I add some more effects through production, so its kind of a cluster of effects.”
Speaking of the style of Balconys, Angus expanded, “It’s more about the soundscapes and creating a sonic environment instead of the stock standard song with verses and choruses.”
Having just released two new singles and a self-titled EP last year, Angus spoke of his writing process and if fans can expect a full-length album at some point in the near future.
“Those are two songs that I had been working on pretty heavily since I put out the EP. I started making them around the time of the EP’s release and I just felt it was natural to put them out as stand alone singles. I was originally writing these songs to put those songs onto an album, but once they were made I just wanted them to be out there so I released them. I do still plan to do an album at some point in the future when I have a bit more time.”
Spearheading a currently unrepresented genre within the local community, Balconys is one of the first bands to be released on Angus’ co-owned label, Reverse Shadow Records.
“We [Angus and Dermott Sellers, the labels other founder] kind of realised that we had a unique sound in comparison to other local labels like Anti-Fade and Weathervane, both who I absolutely adore, but I just couldn’t see our stuff fitting in on those labels,” he says.
“There isn’t actually many shoegaze-y labels around Geelong/Melbourne at all so we figured we would start something up and just see how it goes.
“We officially kicked it off around the start of the year and uploaded a lot of recordings we had from throughout the years. Reverse Shadow is still a pretty big work in progress, a lot of the stuff uploaded at the moment is myself and Dermott and one of our friends, but we do hope to expand it,” he explains, before elaborating further.
“We have our eyes on a couple of people. Seeing as we are pretty fresh in the market it might take a little bit before we fully feel comfortable getting other acts on board but I’d love to get some electronic acts. I feel that would be a really good place to start and then eventually branch out. I’d love to venture out in genres as we grow the label.”
Keep up to date with everything Balconys via www.facebook.com/BalconysAC/
Written by Alex Callan