The long awaited third album by Lazy Habits “Vermillion Sands” is scheduled for release in April 2022, in anticipation of the launch we caught up with James Collins, lead vocalist from the band to discuss pandemic life, motivation for the new music and the upcoming tour. When asked about how he has spent his time during the last couple of years he answered, “I moved and stayed in Taiwan from Feb 2020 after we had completed the songs for the new album, I ended up working on quite a few other projects, myself and Fi of Fjokra work under the name Crush Keys on film soundtracks and other artist work, so while we have been waiting on things to get back to whatever normal means nowadays, we have stayed busy. Also, I never stopped writing Lazy Habits stuff, so we used the time as well as we could”. So what is the new album all about? Vermillion Sands was actually the name of a fictional holiday resort taken from a collection of stories by J. G. Ballard, an English novelist who grew up in Shanghai during the 1930’s whilst it was under Japanese occupation. Some of his experiences were portrayed by Christian Bale when he played a young J.G. Ballard in the coming-of-age war biopic Empire of the Sun (1987). The holiday resort was originally built as a playground for the rich and famous (possibly modelled on Palm Springs) but the story is set way after it’s peak and we are introduced to it whilst in major decline and in a current state of disrepair, which could possibly be interpreted as a metaphor for the reality of a dream, someone who buys into an idea but then realises “the contents of the box seldom looks like the box art itself, it’s like looking behind the facade of all of that”. This dystopian aesthetic has been cleverly conveyed on the video for the first single off the album ‘CTRL‘, a beautifully shot, almost theatrical piece filmed in Wanli, Taiwan, directed by Jenny Lu ( Sochi International Film Festival Award Winner). “It’s kind of a full circle thing in a way, on the first album there are at least two or three J.G. Ballard song titles on it, the second album is actually named after a collection of stories by J.G. Ballard ‘The Atrocity Exhibition‘, and including the new release, this wraps up the trilogy”. James recalls reading this author a lot when growing up and although technically science fiction his stories are ones forged in a world that you can imagine living within, in some not-so-distant future. “Visions of the future based on memories of the past, the way he built worlds seemed so close to what was possible and looking closely at what he read set twenty or thirty years ago, you will start seeing patterns, things that can and have happened. It’s really relatable and a great palette to write on and use the metaphors of some of his work in our work”.
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As mentioned, the video for CTRL is steeped in sci-fi thematics, featuring the intriguing retrofuturist architecture of both Futuro and Venturo abandoned houses, “old school visions of the future” built in the late 1960’s by a Finnish architect. “They are like something out of The Jetsons, visions of the future from the past, future-past stuff. I had wanted to film in this location for years but unfortunatley we found out that the houses since discovering them had been completely destroyed, which was annoying because I had wanted to film there for over five years. Luckliy a friend of ours told us of a second hidden location, smaller but that no one knew about. So we travelled to the other side of the island (Wanli) and true to his word we found this massive hotel and abandoned village of Futuro homes. When I say ‘abandoned’ I don’t mean that they didn’t sell but rather that it feels like something sinister happened there, almost ‘nuclear’, peoples possessions are still in the houses and by looking through the windows you could see they are still full of stuff, however, the windows and walls were smashed and the whole place worn down”. Capturing such a time piece results in quite the evocative video, something that feels utterly alien but clearly a visually-rich single to kick off the album, exciting stuff. The next single/video set to drop off the album is “Waves” and is directed by Birdie, someone who has racked up a few film awards himself, the video follows a similar narrative to CTRL and is based on the same timeline, set to release late March, early April.
As well as the music videos, a Lazy Habits documentary (finalised in 2019) filmed by Marios Kleftakis is set to release later this year, it is currently being invited for submission at a couple of film festivals and will ‘do the rounds’. It originally started off as a documentary of ‘what we were doing’ but ended up as a documentary about ‘what life was like’ (during pandemic). The film maker worked with Lazy Habits for three years, churning out hundreds of hours of raw footage, he even lived with James for a spell. When asked about the documentary James responded, “It is a film of people together all the time and it can be quite haunting to watch that kind of thing, all of us locked in our homes, worried about our families and this collection of memories of us being together, in a studio, a field, on the road or in a restaurant, at my house. It’s just people together and I miss that. I think a lot of people can relate to it, regardless of whether it is a band or not”.
You can watch a trailer for the documentary ‘Arrivals’, here.
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What can we expect from this album? “It’s a natural evolution of the Lazy Habits sound, the essence of what we have always been is there, instrumentation wise but the sound is wider and more cinematic”. James calls out his personal favourite songs on the album as being the titular ‘Vermillion Sands’ and the first single ‘CTRL’. As well as the full roster of Lazy Habits band members; James Collins (Vocals), Ross (Drums), Flo (second drums/percussion), Tom (Bass), Ben (Trombone), the album also features long time collaborator Miss Baby Sol and Onur. As well as these additions, It includes co-production credits courtesy of Nutty P and Benny Aves, both of who were responsible for remixing songs off the first album. The remix for ‘Surface Dirt’ by Benny made it onto the RMX album, he is a multi-genre artist who deals in sounds and visuals alike, which feature heavily on some of LH’s previous work. Nutty P has been involved in their music since the beginning and is responsible for three beats off ‘Vermillion Sands’, beats that he and James both wrote together from scratch. All of the beats from Benny and Nutty have evolved a little bit, some of them initially inspiring the writing of songs off the album, then add the instruments on top of this beat work and you really have something to chew on.
So tell us about the upcoming tour? We have 15 stops starting in April, including a long overdue homecoming gig in London, the confirmed support act is Joshua Idehen. “Joshua is an artist who I have known for a long time. We used to play on the same bills with his band Benin City, he went onto work on a project called “Hugh” which I really vibed off. It was always coming but after I heard the Hugh stuff I reached out and we started working on something for the album, so he’s on that. Since then he’s gone on to work with Sons of Kemet, Calabashed and The Comet is Coming. He has a new project coming soon so it makes perfect sense to get him on board for the shows”. Any festivals planned this year? “Yes but i’m genuinly not allowed to talk about any of them yet. Actually I can talk about Womad as that’s a line up roll over from 2020, I think quite a few festivals are trying to honour slots they offered to acts two years ago. In that sense there seems to be a lot of solidarity in the industry”.
Clearly Lazy Habits are dying to get back on stage (as many artists are), the album is burning a hole in their pocket and they want to share it with the world, so pack your bags, book your visit to Vermillion Sands and take a trip to the extraordinary.
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‘Vermillion Sands’ is out during April 2022 on all digital platforms, you can also pre-order the album on limited edition vermillion red vinyl LP here (shipping May 2022). Why not see the band live as part of their tour, starting in April dates and ticket information can be found here.
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Words by Theo Specone
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Author: Theo Specone