Research into the Band: Mild High Club

Bands timeline:

• The Mild High Club is a psychedelic pop group formed by Alexander Brettin. Brettin, a Los Angeles-based musician who originally grew up playing flute in the school band and majoring in jazz studies in Chicago.  
• "The group's sound is pleasantly woozy and laid-back, but shows a subtle attention to detail without being excessive or indulgent."
• On his own, Brettin began working on Mild High Club material in 2012; using guitars, keyboards, computers, and a four-track recorder, and shuttling between Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.
• In 2012, a visit to Los Angeles allowed him to connect with the Stones Throw crew. Within a year, after passing the early demos of what would become Timeline onto Peanut Butter Wolf, Brettin moved to LA
• Along the way, he met several musicians across the nation who contributed to his album and backed him up during live gigs. 
• Mild High Club signed to Stones Throw at the end of 2014, and a 7" single, "Windowpane," was released in early 2015. 
• The group's debut album, Timeline, appeared later in the year on the label's newly formed Circle Star Records imprint.
• A year later, Stones Throw released the group's more ambitious sophomore full-length, Skiptracing, then in the early months of 2017 Brettin collaborated with Australian psychedelic seekers King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard on an album. 
• Titled Sketches of Brunswick East, the album was a mix of soft rock, psych-pop, and cosmic jazz. It was released by ATO in mid-2017.
• “The difference between Timeline and Skiptracing is detail,” Brettin said. “I was stubborn with the process for Timeline; it took almost three years to let go of it.” On Timeline, Brettin resorted to vague lyrics so as to highlight the music itself. But for Skiptracing there’s both a heightened thematic aspect as well as more complex musical arrangements encasing it. In Brettin’s estimation, the album’s story arc is that of a “private investigator attempting to trace the steps of the sound and the spirit of American music.” 
• Mild High Club re-imagine AM radio hits as blasting in from a parallel universe, the sound of early 70s LA in a smog of sativa. 
• 'Dig deeper into the lyrics and imagery and that detective story slowly emerges. But it’s no simple whodunit? Instead, think The Long Goodbye, The Late Show, Chinatown, Night Moves or any early 70s inversion of the detective noir genre, where the gumshoe protagonist ultimately winds up investigating himself, navel-gazing so as to solve the ultimate mystery. Skiptracing is Philip Marlowe driving around LA listening to Caetano Veloso or that deleted scene in John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie where Cosmo Vitelli reads Cosmic Trigger.' - Band's website
• In crafting Skiptracing, which was released in August 2016 Mild High Club have made an album that strikes a balance between the known and unknown aspects of art and creation. While Brettin sought to have complete control over the creation of the previous album, in opening up and allowing these creative variables in, he learned a valuable lesson that lies at the heart of Skiptracing itself: “When you wish upon the unknown, you might be surprised by the rewards.” 

Their timeline allows a perfect opportunity for their ideology now to evolve into the live performance area of music through 'allowing these creative variables in'.

credits

Visual literacy discussed and how design development and decisions could be used inline with mentioned image styles, typographic treatments, colour and format/layout:

Existing Image/ Visual identity:

• Live video
• Retro futuristic / nostalgic (use old film aesthetics)
• Glitter & Shine / sequences etc
• Wacky and crazy masks, hats, headpieces, glasses 
• Layering/ double exposure/ merging imagery 
• Bright colours - vibrant imagery
• Themes - space/ nature (beach/ plants/ desert/ caves)/ silliness 

Live:

5 members 

Some interchange between instrument (guitar x2 keyboard x2)

   Guitarist 

   Drummer

   Keyboard 

   Bass

Visual heirachy:

• drums at back
• lead singer with guitar
• keyboard stage right
• guitar and bass stage left 

King Lizard music video - other general aesthetic influences// 

Accordingly, Wireframes in response:

Wireframes for stage design

Process:
The design looked at perspective and how the stage could be presented from different angles. It starts with the platform for the band to stand on and options for how this could be manipulated and lit up. Initially the coloured surfaces would represent a screen, in order to visualise the screen. Using cubes is an easy way to build structures to see how they can be stacked together to build the final stage composition. 

The initial idea was to have a sort of cube pyramid, where two landscape screens would form the back two walls, with the band in the middle, and mesh screens for the front two walls, that could have light projections on them and act in coherency with the imagery on the back screens if needed. For instance an image that circles the cube (a 360° moving image or loop). The crowd would then be either side of the front two screens (not shown below, but as a V shape) this will allow them to get an angular view of the performance, and a front view of their facing screen. It also allows for a heightened opportunity for the band to engage with the audience, as more people would get a closer view. 

Front view

The crowd would not be placed like this to optimise space

Final outcome:
However, when considering the band themselves performing, this stage structure could intervene with their ability to perform. It is such that the screens would be in their peripheral vision and thus could distract their performance. 

Accordingly, the structure below may be more appropriate, with an a more hexagonal structure, placing the band in front of the screens. The mesh would then drop along in front of them, and could still be used if wanted for projections, however the design will thus steer clear of 360° moving image. 

Platform options:
As seen above, the band is consists of 5 members. The design then had to consider how they could stand on stage to involve them into the screen based design. Ultimately they are what the audience have come to see, and having their silhouette against the screens is important for the aesthetics of a concert. It is not simply an animation or video clip, it is supporting the performance of the band, to enhance audience experience. 

Variations of platforms 

How the band will look on the platform

Option 1 - don't like the hierarchy created, takes away from the band being one

Final structure. The front three are on one level and the back two one up. They will be in front of the screens as not to have it interfere with their performance, yet be on a level up so that they are clearly visible to the audience.