Tidal Peak’s upcoming album Treasureville is a deeply personal and immersive journey, blending elements of dreampop, shoegaze, and progressive pop. At its heart is Return to Capricorn, a five-part conceptual suite inspired by frontman Kyle Lacko’s upbringing on the Capricorn Coast. With the release of the first single, Coasting, Lacko re-emerges after a five-year hiatus, crafting a record that captures the hazy nostalgia of memory and place.
In this interview, we dive into the creative process behind Treasureville, the inspirations shaping its sound, and how time away from the scene has influenced Tidal Peak’s evolution.
TRACK REVIEW
Drifting into Coasting feels like stepping into a shimmering dreamscape—layers of pulsing synths and airy guitars gently propel the track forward, creating a weightless, euphoric atmosphere. The DIY production gives it an intimate charm, with reverb-soaked vocals reminiscent of The Naked and Famous and M83, blurring the lines between nostalgia and discovery. Tidal Peak masterfully crafts a journey of reflection and escapism, where every swirling texture and melodic swell feels intentional. Coasting isn’t just a song—it’s an invitation to lose yourself in its hypnotic embrace.
Your new single “Coasting” is the first glimpse into Treasureville, and it opens a five-part conceptual suite. What inspired this structure, and how does the song set the tone for what follows?
The structure of the suite was inspired by a number of things, firstly the subject matter which was so strong and impactful, and could not be restricted to only one or two songs. Instead there are seven! It deserved a story of its own to be fleshed out which was part of what brought on the decision to have a couple of songs sort of preceding the suite on the first half of Treasureville, and then turn the second half into a five-part concept piece of its own, titled "Return To Capricorn". It might sound a bit convoluted but in my head it made sense! I had also rekindled a love for prog-rock and I was gravitating towards records that have an ambitious, art-rock structure to them. There were a few touchstones of influences, like "The Ninth Wave" suite on side two of Kate Bush's 1985 album "Hounds of Love" or the conceptual theme that runs throughout the 1986 XTC album "Skylarking". Those records showed me that you didn't have to be strictly pop - you could also be adventurous and experimental. That was part of the inspiration that made me start crafting the structure of the Return To Capricorn suite, where I wanted to have a strong thematic link between those songs.
"Coasting" really is the doorway into looking back. The whole concept is about a person who wants to return to their old coastal hometown but can only imagine it, and in their head they're walking on the beach to these old spots. Who or what will they find on the way? Are they still relevant or regarded in any capacity? That is the tone that "Coasting" sets for the rest of the suite, and it really was the perfect track to lead as a first single, running parallel with my experience of returning to release new music after so many years in the wilderness, wondering if I'm still relevant to anyone.
Treasureville is deeply tied to your upbringing on the Capricorn Coast. How do the landscapes and memories of that time shape the album’s sound and storytelling?
It made sense to write about my old hometown of Yeppoon [on the Capricorn Coast] after a long period of looking back and thinking about what was. I haven't been back there for nearly 15 years and yet it is a place that stayed with me for life. My childhood and adolescence; friendships and romantic relationships - all were shaped by this place. I've always loved the beach and the sea, and those themes always happened to filter into my writing with many previous releases referencing the sea in some way. All of it tied into what sounds like Tidal Peak to me, which is like swirling currents being underwater or breaking the surface. With the storytelling I tried to evoke the feelings I had with certain people and the places associated with them. There are several reference points from Yeppoon scattered across the album, either by song title or lyric - "Frangipani Drive, Salem Court, Lammermoor, Farnborough Beach, Ross Creek Pier, Wreck Point, Rosslyn Bay..." - all referencing the various streets, places and landmarks in which I lived and grew up near. I wanted to connect these places together on the album somehow, to make it feel like you're somewhat there, which is why it sounds so hazy and ethereal at points, because you're imagining it.
Your music blends dreampop, shoegaze, and progressive pop, with layers of guitar effects and atmospheric textures. When crafting a song, do you start with a sonic idea, a melody, or something else entirely?
I think it can sometimes be a case of all three, where I hear a melody in my head and I'm already mapping out the sonic textures and counterpoints with it. Often times I see an image or read a word or title somewhere and the music just seems to flow from that, either with a synth chord or a drum machine rhythm that I can hear in my head. Often times the experimentation with layers of guitar and reverb comes when the foundation of the song has already been put in place and texture is required.
Part of what helps with the songcrafting is the feeling that I'm associating with it, and the imagery. For just about all the Tidal Peak albums, EPs and singles I've been responsible for the artwork which always came before the music was completed, and that always helped channel the feeling into the kind of songs I was crafting because the covers are always specific to the vibe of the music. I use watercolour paints with cling-film and water droplets applied on top, and the results that come out are always very dreamy, underwater places. That helps to create the type of sonic ideas that I get with my music, and Treasureville was no exception. I look at that album cover and I can already just hear the kind of music it evokes.
This album has been five years in the making. Looking back, how has the vision of Treasureville evolved over time?
It was such a long process! It started off very different, which of course it will when you're in your mid-twenties at the time. The year I began making the album that would become Treasureville I had only just moved to Brisbane and my musical horizons were changing. Not necessarily opened, just changing. The demos and tracks that were originally going to make up the album were very psych-influenced, but I didn't realise until later that the tracks sounded hollow, like someone who was trying to sound like someone else, which I was. I released a track in early-2020 as a single, called "Desires Go On" which would have been the first single for the album, but there was nothing authentic about any of it, so I scrapped the whole lot, save for one track, and started again. I realised I needed to abandon any sense of trying to sound contemporary or "trendy", and just make whatever I felt like making that felt and sounded authentically like me, as well as something that felt like it could stand up on its own. The track that I ended up saving from the bin was the very first thing I recorded for Treasureville, and it was something that came out naturally on its own in the process, so I realised I needed to be truer to myself in making this album. I stopped caring about the things they try to tell you when you make music, like having to have two-minute pop songs full of hooks otherwise people lose interest - I was more about making longer songs and crafting these atmospheric soundscapes that unfolded like a tapestry, which is why several tracks on Treasureville go beyond the six, seven and eight minute mark.
The thing that really made me take so long to finish Treasureville was my own perfectionism, which ramped up when the pandemic lockdowns hit, and did not let up until it was finally done. It took a long time to knock the album into its final shape. There were so many late evenings going into the early morning where I was sat there with headphones, playing back the same part 50 times. I had to be so surgically precise and meticulous with it - everything was mixed, edited and produced with such microscopic detail. You have to be fully content with it yourself before you send it out into the world, and I'm glad I was able to live with it for so long before I felt finally ready to release it.
“Coasting” is described as floating on an atmospheric drone with a choral cacophony of reverb. How do you balance creating dense, immersive soundscapes while keeping the songs emotionally direct?
It depends on the nature of the song and the kind of feeling you want it to represent. Often times I've found it effective to have the denseness and the vocals often blending with one another - the kind of thing shoegazers are known for when their voices are mixed into the song and barely distinguishable. Just about all of the songs on Treasureville were completed with the backing tracks first before any lyrics were done and even then they were mostly stream-of-consciousness. I found myself pulling the words out of the ether as I went along, often finding the next phrase as I was laying down vocal takes. If it felt like it naturally fit the track, I would then layer with further vocal tracks and backing vocals before I moved onto the next phrase. This method of working suited me a lot better than trying to write lyrics prior and see if they would fit the song, because most times they would sound good in my head until it came time to sing. Using the atmosphere of each track to pull words and phrases from the top of my head as I went along made it easier for me to consider how the lyrics could overall be placed and how they could deliver the emotional impact I was going for.
You’ve performed as a live band sporadically over the years. Do you see Tidal Peak as more of a studio project, or is live performance something you’d like to expand on?
It's interesting because when I started Tidal Peak it was always with the intention of being a studio project with the live setting being a regular thing alongside it. The project has had a revolving cast of players coming and going throughout the years, but I still envisioned it as a band rather than musicians backing me. It usually depended on who was available at the time. For a while when we were still based in Toowoomba we gigged fairly frequently, but the move to Brisbane slowed things down considerably. The last time we played was as a three-piece in 2021 with my partner Holly on synth and our friend Kirsty on bass, when we supported Coalfalls at The Bearded Lady, and Mode Atlanta at The Greaser Bar. Since then I had been focused completely on getting the album done. Now that it is scheduled for release I've wondered whether to get back on the horse again live-wise, or stay solely focused on studio releases. I have to decide on what feels comfortable and playing live hasn't always been the easiest thing for me, which can be tricky when so many promoters want to know when your next gig is. Staying solely studio-based however would be nothing new - XTC did it and I believe they made much better records as a result of it. All I can say for now on that front is we'll see what happens.
Treasureville will be available on CD and cassette via Bandcamp. What draws you to physical formats in an era dominated by streaming?
I feel like it brings more excitement to the table. Don't get me wrong, digital is a great way to access something easily, but when everyone is releasing music digitally it's nice to have something outside of that which sets your album apart from the others, plus I want to get my music out there in as many ways as possible and not be restricted to just having it on a streaming service. There's something exciting about seeing the album artwork up close, printed on a CD or formatted to a cassette case, and I found it so enjoyable to prep the album liner notes and back cover for the CD. I went back to handmaking and packaging around 50 copies specifically for this release, which was a nice way of revisiting the DIY days of putting together CDs for the earlier Tidal Peak releases. The cassette tapes were done through a company in Melbourne called DEX Audio. I wish I could have gotten the album pressed on vinyl but that's a whole other enterprise in itself. Perhaps one day Treasureville will get a vinyl release.
The gap between your last release and this one has been quite a stretch. Did stepping away from the music scene for a while change your approach to songwriting and production?
It wasn't by intention, but in some ways it did end up changing my approach to both of those things. The last release I did was the single "Shimmer" in late-2020 which signalled the direction I was heading in for Treasureville. When I was still part of the scene, alongside recording the album and playing live I was also part of another band on lead guitar duties. We did a consistent number of gigs across Brisbane and it was looking to get bigger, but I was also finding it difficult to balance properly with the other aspects of my life. I could tell I wasn't really fitting in with the in-crowd of the scene and the inner workings of that band setting either, so I needed to step away for a while to convalesce and get my bearings. Sadly it also meant that various people I had made connections with in the scene gradually drifted away from contact, so I was really in my own corner for a few years, with only a handful people around for support.
I guess in some ways the isolation was what I needed to focus all my energy on completing the album, and the remaining songs I wrote and recorded around this time have a different feel to them. They're much more reflective and refined, but also ambitious as well. I was starting to lean more into the progressive pop indulgences, and using my voice more as an instrument to be placed in the forefront rather than burying it in the mix.
It does feel strange to be stepping back into the scene again. I feel more sure of myself now than I did four or five years ago, but I also feel like the whole landscape has changed.
Your label imprint, Innersea Records, is releasing Treasureville. What led you to start the label, and do you see it expanding beyond your own releases?
When I first started producing my own work as Tidal Peak I decided having my own label to build from would be ideal given the amount of material I was producing at the time. A friend in the band had steered me onto a documentary about Flying Nun Records which I swiftly became enamoured with. I figured having a cottage-industry indie label with a singular identity would help me to network with other likeminded musicians and artists. As time went on I realised it would be difficult to promote my own music and manage the PR as well. I have sometimes thought about signing with a Brisbane label and would love to work with either 4000 Records or False Peak Records if it were possible one day. For the time being however it made sense to put Treasureville out through Innersea and I've enjoyed getting back into the swing of having everything prepared one bit at a time, like getting CDs and cassette copies made, getting the artwork printed onto posters and making mini promos for the album. I can see other likeminded artists being on Innersea, and I would be very keen to produce for someone for the label.
If someone were listening to Treasureville for the first time, where would you want them to be, and what kind of experience do you hope they have?
I would want them to be somewhere with no distractions or outside noises, someplace they can listen to the album uninterrupted on headphones and go on a journey. I wanted the album to feel like this swirling, ethereal underwater world where you were diving in headfirst. I would hope the listener gets a strong emotional response from the album, or a sense of powerful nostalgia. I'd want for them to hear the various vocal layers, or the instrumental passages which invite them back to listen again and again.
I can barely listen to my previous releases from years ago now, because of the production choices that were made back then. Treasureville is different. I've lived with it for so many years and it stands as my best work so far, where I can listen to it and find myself enjoying it. It has so much more depth than anything else I've done and it is the album I am most proud of.
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