"All About The Album" - If you'd like to feature your band/album, email: urban

The CAPSULES: "Northen Lights and Southern Skies"

The CAPSULES -  Truly emotional and haunting melancholy? - The dynamic power-trio of The Capsules (feat. former Shallow members Julie and Jason Shields) return with - 'Northern Lights and Southern Skies' - their latest offering to the Gods of eclectic as well as electric indie pop and vivid synth rock. Angelic/ghostly female vocals and 80s indie rock arrangements (The Cure, Jesus & Mary Chain) mixed together in perfect harmony. Find out more about the album... here's the no longer Shallow man:  Jason Shields...

How has the reaction to your latest CD been?

It's been really good! I think this is our best and most cohesive album so far, and we're really excited that folks like it.

How long did this CD take to make from start to finish, recording-wise?

We spent a little over a year writing the songs and tracking the instruments, and then a busy final week in the studio recording vocals and mixing.

What kind of 'sound', production wise, did you have in the back of your mind, prior to recording

It's actually a really fun process for us to start playing and recording and sort of discover where the songs take us. I think usually after we've written about 5 or 6 songs we can see (or hear) a pattern and know where the album is headed. But with this record I think we felt a fun place to explore was adding more synth elements and loops. There are still a lot of guitars on this album, but we wanted to play in a little bit more digital space for this album.

What kind of input did the producer have during the process

Our producer, a Kansas City area legend named Ed Rose, was really invaluable in the final stretch - recording vocals and mixing. He really helped pull out what was important about each song and it was nice to have an extra, fresh set of ears listening in and providing input.

And are you pleased with the final outcome? (sound - production wise)

Yeah definitely! Mixing is tough for us because it's one of those things where you can keep iterating and changing things til the end of time. This is one of the reasons we wanted to work with a pro like Ed Rose, so we could iterate, but have a quantifiable stopping point. But yeah, we're really happy with where we ended up.

Did the producer (or you) use any (weird) experimental miking and/or  recording techniques?

We always try to approach things from an experimental standpoint whenever possible. For this record though, that was mostly about machines. We used a lot of weirdo, half broken old synths and pedals to expand our palette a bit into sounds we hadn't tried much before.

What's the story behind the title of Northern Lights and Southern Skies?

We recently moved to Texas from Kansas City and this record was written during and after that transition from the North to the South. A lot of the songs are about the change in atmosphere and finding yourself in new surroundings. It also hints at Julie's obsession with the northern lights, space and astronomy.

Please inform us about your favourite songs off the album ?

I think the opening four have stood out to us as a really nice flow of songs. They are all unique and have their own identity, but are sort of cohesively disparate, if that makes any sense. We actually made music videos for the opener, "Across the Sky", and the third track, "Our Apocalypse". Another track, called "Time Will Only Tell", is one that fans and reviewers had pointed out as a highlight of the album, so we just finished up a music video for that one too!

Any overall theme of mood that you're trying to capture while writing songs?

I think even though our music is a bit moody and sometimes dark, we never want to be bleak. There's always a hint of hope in our songs.

Does 'Time Will Only Tell' have ANYTHING to do with the old UK geezers of Asia (Only Time Will Tell) ;-)?

Haha, no. However, we love that people find their own meaning in our music. We don't necessarily try to tell them how to feel about our music, but hopefully it's something they can relate to and find their own meaning in. so that can be your meaning! [Urban's note: Ehem, thanks, only kidding tho' :)]