Covet: Technicolor Dreamscape

If there’s a weirdly complicated genre of music, it’s math rock. And if there’s a unique band in that genre, it’s COVET. In the wake of their second full-length album Technicolor, we caught up with guitarist and vocalist Yvette Young to delve deeper into the unconventional way she writes and her desire to inspire through hard times.

COVET aren’t traditional math rock in the sense that complicated movements aren’t added for the sake of it, as it sometimes feels like with certain bands. What sets COVET apart from the off is the melodic approach Yvette takes when writing. “I kind of view all my parts as all run-on sentences, and I always care about fluidity and flow,” Yvette explains when it comes to the initial approach to music composition. “I always sing all my parts first before I commit to them, that’s how I figure out what I want to come next; your voice is your primary instrument, you’re born with it and ideas come quickest from your brain to your voice, and I just translate what I hear in my voice to my guitar. Also, that way, I’m not letting what’s convenient and what’s comfortable on guitar dictate what I play. I’m actually serving the melody rather than doing what my hands want to do.”

COVET as a band encompass a feeling of adventure, curiosity and nostalgia into their sound. The music itself is like a journey, as you discover the intricacies of each part. That’s much the same with the process of writing the music- it’s not initially about structure, it’s about melody. “Yeah, I don’t think about time signature or meter, I just kind of let my voices natural flow shape what I write,” Yvette laughs. “When I go to my drummer and then he spells out what I’ve done, we sit down together and work out the time signatures and where we want all the accents and how we want to phrase and group things. Then, after we spell out the rhythm section my bass player then jams with my drummer and works out his parts. So, it’s kind of like a two-step process and then of course, we all play together.”

The feeling through this latest record is technically brilliant, but more than that, it has a huge amount of sentiment and heart behind each song. There’s no limit to what could or should written with COVET; things get dark and fuzzy, or light and gainy, it’s all there to serve the greater intentions of the song. When designing the artwork, Yvette was also baring the intentions of the album in mind. “I wanted it to be kind of a muddy background, and then a big beautiful flower with Gouldian finches coming out of it, because Gouldian finches are just so colourful,” she explains. “And I feel like there’s a lot of variety on this album sonically, there’s a lot of styles there and it’s all unified and driven by melody. We were joking that there’s ‘a whole rainbow of colours on this album,’ and I was like ‘oooooh- technicolor!’. I also like that word technicolor, because it connotes the old process for colouring film, and a lot of the songs have a nostalgic feel to them, so the word has a sense of nostalgia to it as well.”

There are sections to Technicolor that we’re treated to vocals from Yvette, something fans have really appreciated. “Whatever the song needs, that my rule,” Yvette laughs. “That’s why some songs have vocals, because I felt the song needed words, so I started singing! If the song needs something, I’ll do it.”

One thing to consider is that the uplifting feelings on Technicolor weren’t written out of an cheerful mindset, but out of a desire to feel better. The catharsis of writing and the value of wanting to remind yourself things can be okay, is a huge part of what creates that genuine emotional connection on this record. “I wrote [farewell] when I want through something really awful,” admits Yvette earnestly. “Actually, I wrote most of this album when I was at a super low point, so I was like ‘okay, I gotta write music, even though I don’t feel like writing music’. A lot of these songs feel really warm, like a big hug because I was trying to write the music I wanted to feel, even though I didn’t feel it myself. So, the lyrics for farewell I wrote as a comforting message to myself, or to anyone, that everything’s going to be okay and you’ve got to take things day by day.”

The message at the end of Technicolor seems clear. Life can be really tough, but music can be the medicine, and you can ease the struggle of what you’re going through with release music can bring. “It’s such a valuable thing to play music, when things are really crumby and your depressed you can change your mood by playing something really uplifting,” Yvette promises. “That happened to me so many times when I didn’t feel great, I started playing a melody that felt uplifting and it changed my mood. I end up smiling by the end, thinking like ‘wow, I didn’t realise I was having such a nice time’. I wanted to write a comforting message, and hopefully that message to myself will touch other people too if they’re going through something.”

Technicolor is out now via Triple Crown Records.

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