Exclusive album premiere of ‘Colourless Green Ideas’ by Misty Lanes, out March 8th, 2024 via Third Eye Stimuli Records and Echodelic Records.

The inspiration for Misty Lanes’ latest album originated from composer and producer Steven W. Schouten’s encounter with a seemingly nonsensical yet grammatically coherent phrase, ‘Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously,’ coined by American author and linguist Noam Chomsky. This encounter prompted Schouten to contemplate the pursuit of meaning in various aspects of life, ultimately leading to the realization that not everything requires interpretation; some things simply exist for the sake of art. This philosophy served as the cornerstone for Misty Lanes’ upcoming second album, ‘Colourless Green Ideas,’ which promises to be a diverse compilation of songs spanning multiple genres such as psychedelic rock, baroque pop, outsider folk, krautrock, funk-infused garage rock, and library music. Scheduled for release on March 8th, 2024, the album will be available through Third Eye Stimuli Records and Echodelick Records (USA).

“Sometime early in 2021, I went through a whole lot of songs I’d recorded over the past few years that I thought were finished and started arranging the ones I liked in a way that felt like an album. During this process, I landed on the idea that I wanted it to be a little bit eclectic and showcase the vastness of styles I like to write in.”

Schouten thoughtfully tries to stay true to the rawness of his ideas, which he calls “colourless green” — holding onto the essence of the naive first take or demo, which always holds a certain magic and is almost impossible to recreate in the studio environment.

“Things are allowed to just exist for the sake of it — art for art’s sake. That’s how I feel about my own music. I’m not someone with a story or a particular message, I just love the act of creating and if it happens that what I create is born out of an experience, story or feeling, that’s a bonus, but sometimes the unknown and nonsensical feels right and makes sense.”

Written, recorded and pieced together between 2016-2021 in different home studios before Schouten finished up the mixing in 2022, ‘Colourless Green Ideas’ has been a long time coming since Misty Lanes’ 2017 self-titled album. Steven Schouten levels up his songwriting, mixing and production, with new instruments such as his Mellotron Micro appearing all through the record. Both the songwriting and the production of the album nods to 1960s artists such as Brian Wilson, Billy Nicholls, The BeeGees, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Kinks.

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