Brighton based Egyptian Blue have released their debut album A Living Commodity. The roots of the band began as an escape from suburbia, losing themselves in hours of ear-splitting, alcohol-induced jam sessions above a jeweller’s shop in Colchester. Relocating to Brighton and signing to new music champions YALA! saw Egyptian Blue cement themselves as a band notably with the release of 2019’s debut EP Collateral Damage plus a tour with The Murder Capital. Second EP, 2020’s Body of Itch, saw the 4-piece develop further but the pandemic years took their toil, as it did for so many. So it was a given to talk to vocalist and guitarist Andy Buss about how life is now for Egyptian Blue.
Congratulations Egyptian Blue on your debut album A Living Commodity released via YALA! Records. You formed in 2019 and with the turbulent pandemic years, is it possible to share how it feels to have the album released?
Feels incredibly liberating to have this thing out – releasing our debut record, was something that was once no more than a thought. It’s a project we put our souls into and obsessed over all the tiny details, not to mention the achingly long process that goes into making a record, which illuminates the gratitude we feel from being able to put this out into the world even more. It’s been not much more than a pipe dream for the whole time we’ve been together and for everything to have finally fallen into place at the right time feels unreal.
Egyptian Blue’s music has a real off-kilter edge to it, especially on songs like ‘In My Condition‘. Can you explain your creative process?
So there’s a couple of ways we approach song-writing. Most of the time I will obsess over a lyric or a guitar sound and won’t stop thinking about it until a song is forming in my head. Then once it’s done I’ll demo the whole thing on my computer and then bring it to the band and we’ll chop and change bits around and do some fine tuning on it. The other route is from a jam-based approach. I think this is how ‘In My Condition‘ came about and songs like ‘Belgrade Shade‘ and ‘Matador‘ . They usually come from very long jam sessions and listening back you can hear 3 seconds here or 3 seconds there which just click, and then a song is written around that. ‘In My Condition’ is probably the only tune on the record which we worked on fully together, no one went off and developed outside of the band.
What are the main themes of A Living Commodity?
The EPs we released prior to the record, the themes were kind of based around the monotony of daily grind, working long hours and not seeing the rewards. A Living Commodity follows a purely internal emotive theme. I get very inspired by emotion in my life and the draws of life that throw you back and forth through love, hate, despair and anything really that makes you feel something strongly. Some dark things were happening in my life around this time and the themes very much focus on the catharsis of release from this, even on fear of home too and dreading going to sleep every night in my bed.
How was the recording process? Was it a thrill to be working on your debut album or did it come with some unexpected challenges?
It was amazing, we spent about 2 months working on it. Half in Brighton half in Eastbourne. It was so beautiful waking up early every morning and retreating to the beachy head-esque foggy coastline every morning. It set the tone for the day and I think in some kind of methodical way helped with the emotion we wanted to capture. It was nice having every single day focusing on a new thing and being solely in the frame of mind of the record. I don’t think it brought many challenges, I think it actually opened the door of clarity on many songs. Some songs were unfinished even up to the previous week before we started recording, for example, ‘Geisha‘ – I only had lyrics after we recorded the music, it all just came to me in one go. Before that I actually had a degree of uncertainty about that song but now it’s a front runner for me. So the whole process was clarifying.
Where did the band name came from?
It came from a dulex colour chart or a mug maybe ? That I had in my home growing up in Ipswich. Its actual origin is unknown but they are two of the theories we’ve had. Not really sure how it’s slipped our minds.
You are currently on tour in the UK and have some headline dates in France at end of November/beginning of December. Are these the first headline dates you’ve done in Europe? How are you enjoying being on the road?
No, so we toured on a headline tour in France in March which was unreal, one of the best tours we’ve ever done and so much fun and such good company around us. Such a special thing to see your music resounding with people in a different country. Feels good to be out touring again, playing the tunes from the record but with people knowing them also, brings so much more to the show. That being said we’re day 4 right now and I’m definitely feeling more like day 10… but I love it.
What does 2024 have in store for Egyptian Blue?
We’re planning to start working on new material very soon once this year comes to a close, the works are already in place we just need to fine tune as a band. Other than that, we can’t wait to be playing these tunes at festivals across Europe and UK, we’ll see what’s in store.
For more information on Egyptian Blue please check out their facebook and instagram.
