Interview
Crown Lands talks Ritual I & Ritual II – Interview
Sarah Sharpe – Interview conducted on August 15th, 2025
Crown Lands is a progressive rock duo exploring intergalactic storytelling through experimental music. They recently released two EP’s Ritual I and Ritual II, which expand on their sound by incorporating ambient soundscapes and world music influences. The band approached these records as a meditation-inspired project, free from the pressures of a large label.
I had the chance to sit down and talk to Kevin and Cody of Crown Lands last month for a more in depth look at their recent releases and what fans can look forward to coming up next!
To start, for those who don’t know, who is crown lands?
“Were a progressive rock duo, we make grand storytelling, epic, prog rock that tells intergalactic stories that come back to dealing with a lot of themes that Canadians would understand like colonialism and being a good person.” – Kevin
So, we obviously are here to talk about not one but 2 new releases, Ritual and Ritual II. These 2 EP releases mark a noticeable shift from your previous work over the past few years what inspired you both to move away from your signature sound?
“Were not moving away from it, were just expanding upon it. Theres a lot of those elements of the Rituals that have already been present in our music. Especially the beginning of Reflections deals with a lot of that kind of ambient soundscape work that is all over Ritual. And of course, Codys flute playing is already present on the journey from Starlifter. The polyrhythms were already present throughout our music especially on Interfacing the Machine. We just wanted to take those small moments and kind of expand them out into a full cinematic scope” -Kevin
“When we finished White Buffalo after that, in the height of the pandemic is when we actually got the idea to write Ritual I. So, we both just kind of took our love for weird, electronic and world music, and came together and put together this record first under the premise of it being a meditation record because we love that kind of stuff. I’m into meditation and we were like, okay, let’s make a record around this vibe, and just kind of change pace. Do it for more of like, you know, something that is more fun for us, instead of something that requires a lot of effort and pressure, which is often the case in a studio scenario with our main sound. Then it quickly became more psychedelic, and we just expanded it and incorporated the story of this being the sounds of Fearless’ people and incorporating it into the grander scope of the story we are trying to tell through our music.” – Cody
“Writing the rituals from the lens of the idea that it’s not Cody and I, but rather we discovered this music as like an ancient transmission from Fearless’ planet that kind of gave us the freedom to write music that didn’t have traditional song structures and allowed us to explore things that were interesting to us musically without having to face any commercialism. Obviously the first Ritual too was the first record that we wrote front to back without the pressure of a major label. We had just left Universal and were free agents and then we started talking to Inside Out Music who are a German progressive rock label, and it felt like that was where we wanted to go for our new home. And these records kind of confuse even them… which is great! So, when you’re confusing even the Prog heads with Prog, you know you are actually going in the right direction. We’re very lucky that they eventually that they wanted to help us put out these Rituals.” – Kevin
“These elements have always been present in our music again, but we decided to just remove everything else.”-Kevin
“We just turned it up to a 10” – Cody
What led to the decision to release these songs as 2 separate EPs rather than a full-length album?
“They tell complete stories within themselves.” -Kevin
“They were also recorded at two different times. Two completely different headspaces.” -Cody
“They are companion pieces, and it paints a complete picture within it. so, we wanted to give each one its own space and also the idea is that Ritual I is such a big departure I think where it is a lot more ambient and a lot more new age. And Ritual II serves more to bridge the gap between those textures and more the kind of prog rock leaning stuff in the rest of our catalogue. so, anyone who might feel alienated from Ritual I would find a lot more elements about the band on Ritual II. But it still is pretty far out.” -Kevin
“We really love that about music, we have our own idea of what it’s about but to someone else they have their own sort of storyline. Especially without lyrics you can make up your own story for it.” -Cody
What were each of your favourite tracks to create from each EP? Whether it was because of the music itself or a memorable experience during production process, Id love to hear what made certain songs stand out for you both?
“For me on Ritual I my favorite track is The Serpent because it has an interesting inception. We had no demo for it when we first came together. We had everything in front of us, when Graham brought all the percussion instruments, and there was this log drum… like a hollowed-out log and it’s an amazing African instrument and it has these beautiful tones when you hit it with mallets. I was just obsessed with this thing. We were still setting up and I just started hitting on it and I made this beautiful rhythm and I was like ‘GUYS this is really really cool!’. We just recorded it and then there was also a cool African marimba we messed around with and we just built the song up on the spot. The Serpent came together the first day we were recording which is so cool, just off the dome! To me that really feels like the crescendo of the entire record.”-Cody
“Respite really does stand out to me, I feel there’s a lot of Peter Gabriel influence on that, especially his fourth record Security. There is one song, San Jacinto, and that influenced a ton of the textures that I was going for on that. The guitars, synths, marimba, I’m sure there is a lot within that. That song started out with a marimba sequence that I ended up doing and then Cody played another marimba on top of that. It feels very that there’s a blending between the machines and the organic on that one, it blurs it because you don’t know what’s a synth and what is real or organic. I also love Shadows Under Moonlight because that one felt like the closest to bridging the gap between something like Starlifter and something like Ritual I. The guitars are a bit more present and there’s a lot of that kind of 80s King Crimson influence. I love the talking drum that Cody did on that one, I also really loved the sonic feel mixing that one. It was a really fun one to do, it came together so quickly.” – Kevin
Another thing that stood out to me was that many – if not all – of the tracks in the release had sounds of wildlife like birds, frogs, and crickets. Did you record these sounds yourselves?
“All sounds we just recorded around the studio. Either with our phones or with a zoom recorder, a lot was just with phones, it is kind of interesting because on Dawn what sounds like rain hitting leaves… is actually, we learned later, there’s this invasive species of caterpillar that was eating all the leaves… so the sound of rain is actually their poop hitting the leaves. It was sunny and it sounded like rain all day, we thought it was amazing, so we recorded it, it was perfectly matching what we were going for.. that sun shower vibe. We talked to the owners of the studio after and they were like.. ‘no we’ve been trying to get rid of those caterpillars for years’.. I mean who cares it sounds beautiful!!” – Kevin
“ I hate caterpillars.” -Cody
“ I never would have known it sounds great!” -Sarah
“ I know, we did also record some actual rain.. so who’s to say where the poop ends and the rain begins..” -Kevin
Can fans expect any upcoming shows in the next few months or upcoming year?
“We’re mostly recording this year. Just a handful of shows, we are supporting Bruce Dickenson at History which is great!. Next year we are going to be doing a lot more. A summer run, early 2026, and later on I’m sure we will be going back overseas. I’m not sure when we’re getting back to western Canada but hopefully next year!” -Kevin
How do you think performance wise will these shows differ from your usual live sets? Especially if you plan to do a mix of stuff from other albums and the Rituals? How are you guys going to manage the performance?
“Actually next week were going in next week with two close friends who will be joining us as percussionists to work through the Ritual music. Cody will be focusing more on the flutes, were going to see how that goes. I would love to see how we can pull some stuff off. Like In the Reeds would be easy to pull off but a few others would be more challenging to pull off the layered rhythms.” – Kevin
“Respite or Tempest, like BIG ones, it’s hard to replicate those polyrhythms.”-Cody
“There’s a lot of repetition in this music though so I would love to explore some live looping in the future to see how we can pull this off with the two of us. but yeah.. I don’t know yet!” -Kevin
“We’re figuring it out!” – Cody
I hope for those of you who love Crown Lands, you had questions about the new releases answered… and for those of you who have never heard of them.. what are you doing!!
Go listen to Ritual I and Ritual II, streaming anywhere you can find music now!!
