Throughout their years together, The Crowleys have focused on building a danceable set through a Venn diagram of inspiration from 60s rock, 80s pop and modern psychedelia. Peppered throughout their music is a driving and crunchy rhythm, distinctive synth warble, diverse vocals, and mind-melty pedalporn guitar.

Their debut LP, Strange Seasons, is a collection of songs by a Hamilton, ON, group of friends who wanted to share music with each other, and now the world. The album attempts to put the strangeness of the world into words and melody.

The instrumentation for the focus track, “Seasons,” was largely written by keyboard player/guitarist Justyn Horlick. It’s an emotional jazzy turnaround that repeats for most of the song. The ending, inspired by the Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings song “100 Days, 100 Nights,” features a transition from 4/4 time to 6/4 time. The lyrics on the other hand were penned by vocalist Giuliana Frontini, on a hot day in November when she noticed that she was unsettled by the temperature.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

We thought that this song in particular effectively summed up the themes and tones of the album, making it a great candidate for a music video. It is also more grounded in its sonic textures and has a more vintage and natural sound than the rest of the album, which lended itself to the settings and characters found in the video, and is emphasized by the vintage look of the Super 8 film. Much of the rest of the album would demand a lot of neon lighting, lazer beams, and classic cars, which unfortunately just wasn’t in the budget…

2. What was the inspiration behind this video(visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

Like much of the album, the inspiration is environmentalism. We aimed to tell a tale about the allure of consumerism, and the inevitable destruction it leads to. In the video the mask that two of the main characters find is meant to represent consumerism. Like most of us they use this consumerism to hide their true self from the world. This always goes hand in hand with environmental consequences, which in the video is represented by “The Bag”.

3. What was the process of making this video?

When we first set out to shoot the video the main focus was shooting it on Super 8 film. Although we were excited about the Super 8 and the colour and tone it brings, it can be a bit nerve racking. The film is expensive to buy and develop, and you really only have one shot to make it work. The quality of Super 8 depends on the quality of lighting, and we were nervous about the overcast day that we had to shoot on. We ended up shooting the whole thing twice, once with Super 8, and once on a phone as backup. Luckily, the Super 8 turned out great and we had enough footage to use it exclusively.

What initially started as a very open-ended idea of shooting the distinct contrast between nature and industrialism in our hometown of Hamilton, evolved into a story with the help of a few props that we brought along, specifically the Scaramouche mask and a plastic bag, which ended up being the costumes for the main characters of the film.

While the theme of Strange Seasons is lightly steeped in environmental angst there is a romantic current throughout with lyrics often referencing a relationship with another person as a means of surviving the elements.