Shortly after completing their critically acclaimed Top 20 album ‘Marble Skies’ last year, Django Django found themselves in the midst of an extended rush of inspiration. Before ‘Marble Skies’ had even been released, they returned to their HQ to record a selection of new material with drummer Dave Maclean on production duties.

The result is the all-new six-track EP ‘Winter’s Beach’ which is set to be released on October 12th on Because Music.

The lead track ‘Swimming At Night’ – which was premiered by BBC 6Music’s Lauren Laverne – is Django Django at their most gloriously unpredictable. Its deceptively linear beat soon progresses into something altogether more leftfield, with a coherent collision of vintage synths, vocoders, tight vocal harmonies and surrealist lyrics about “living with life forms under the water.”

‘Swimming At Night’ is accompanied by a video which was directed and animated by Gemma Yin Taylor, whose previous credits include Sigrid and Alvvays.

“For Swimming at Night the guys wanted to create a highly visual piece of moving image exploring the vibrant inner worlds within our own heads. With a nod to some iconic graphic and video styles from the 70’s and 80’s, I used mixed media techniques and a low frame rate to achieve a distinctive tactile quality. Meandering through deconstructed figurative, scenic, and natural forms from the start of the video, sets the stage for introducing some trippier ‘life forms underwater’ when the track submerges us into the vibrant choruses. The imagery is familiar, but subverted, using non-linear animation techniques. I wanted the video to embody the off-beat eccentricities of the track, whilst still having a bold, bright pop sensibility”, says Yin Taylor.

Maclean adds; “the Swimming at Night chorus is about closing your eyes or being in the dark and swimming in your own world, your own thoughts. The idea for the video came when we were in Palm Springs. The light and the colours there were extraordinary and were the inspiration behind some of the imagery in the video. That, combined with an old drawing that Tommy found, of a colourful deep blue sea full of creatures. The video was animated by Gemma Yin Taylor who did an amazing job at bringing to life the visual I had in my head”.

Commencing with the mood-setting instrumental opening title track, the ‘Winter’s Beach’ EP sparkles with the creative energy of a band who are fully embracing their artist freedom. It’s followed by ‘Sand Dunes’, which reiterates the band’s unique ability to set post-apocalyptic imagery and themes of rebirth to beautifully futuristic sounds.

Elsewhere, ‘Flash Forward’ pulsates with an ominous and rapid-fire dancefloor energy; ‘Ghost Rider’ takes flight with some otherworldly psychedelic grooves; and ‘Blue Hazy Highs’ sounds like today’s Django Django time-travelling back to the Summer of Love.