The wait for five piece progressive outfit Cauls debut album Recherche seems to have been considerable.  Now finally released, Cauls sat down to talk to Damian Robinson about the album and their future show at Evolution Emerging.

Damian: Hi, first off we’ve spoken to a number of bands playing the Evolution Emerging festival, and most of them have put you first or second on their ‘to see’ list.

Cauls: Wow, that’s really nice.  We’ve been getting nothing but nice feedback from people who’ve seen us before or who’ve heard the album.  It’s nice to hear, but we take nothing for granted.

Damian: We’ve heard the new album and think it sounds fantastic, sounding like a blend of Mars Volta and free style jazz.

Cauls: It’s funny you should say that as we love driving rock music, like ACDC, and some of us come from a jazz background.  We love how you can be taken on emotional journeys through harmony and try to blend the two sounds together.

Damian: Wow, do you struggle to replicate your music live in an environment where you have strong guitar riffs and elements of free style?

Cauls: Not really no as there’s nothing free style in our live show.  It may be where we head in the future but for the moment we spend a long time getting the structure of our live songs correct so that we can replicate that sound in a real environment.  It’s important that we do that as we don’t really have a rule book when we create songs, it’s not verse chorus verse chorus for example, so we take time to practice our live show to make sure that the songs can be played properly. Live we try to bring the soundscapes of our music to life with lots of guitar effects and reverb, whilst using crushing riffs on top. We think that’s quite effective.

Damian: I think that’s very effective.  You sound perhaps a little apologetic?

Cauls: (laughing) It’s interesting that you say that, we think we should maybe be a bit more confident in our music.  As a band we do tend to write and record music and then often almost straight away tell people that it’s okay but the next songs will be better.

Damian: That’s interesting.  Some creative people do look for imperfection as a motivation to produce more.  How does that internalisation support the desire to create new material?

Cauls: Well we were a 4 piece and now we’ve had some line-up changes and a new guitarist, Kye.  It’s the first time we’ve had two guitarists in the band and immediately our composition and harmony is getting more intricate.  We are really happy with the direction of the new material and we’re using Logic to write a lot quicker.

Damian: What does perfect look like for Cauls in the next 6-12 months?

Cauls: We want to build on our album and try to build up a following across the country.  We’d like to get out and tour the record.  Our live show is stronger than it’s ever been so we’d like to get out there.

Damian: Starting of course with Evolution Emerging.

Cauls: Yep, that’s always a great event.  We played a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.  We’re playing with some of our friends and other great bands like Mongeese and Shamu so we can’t wait.