Innerworld

## **Singles from *Innerworld***

1. "A Real Hero"
Released: January 11, 2010
2. "Innocence"
Released: November 26, 2013

***Innerworld*** is the debut studio album by Electric Youth, released on September 30, 2014. The creation of the record took four years. Bronwyn Giffin commented that it was "a reflection of that honesty and sometimes vulnerability." They worked with Peter Mayes and Vince Clarke.

## Background

Their 2010 song with College, "A Real Hero," serves as the lead single from the album. It was followed by the single "Innocence," released in November 2013, that was announced alongside their forthcoming LP. They worked with Vince Clarke on "The Best Thing". Those who pre-ordered the album instantly received the two tracks, "The Best Thing" and "Innocence".

In a Facebook post, they shared:

> "We're inspired by a lot of things but perhaps none more than the world of film. The films we connect with have a way of taking our feelings and putting them into a story, into words, into visuals. At times, aspects of a film mirror the way we feel and seeing those feelings reflected on a screen helps us put them into words and often, cinematic music of our own. As a result, there are songs we wrote on the album that have been used in films, there are songs we wrote for films that we decided to keep for the album, there are even songs we wrote inspired by old films that ended up being used in new films!"
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Movies included *The Endless Summer* (1966), *Mad Max* (1979), *Friday the 13th Part 2* (1981), 'Body Double *(1984), Dark Side of the Moon* (1990), *Cool World* (1992), *La Cité de Dieu* (2002), and *Wreck-It Ralph* (2012).

## Title and artwork

In an interview with *Vice*, Austin Garrick explained the meaning behind the title, "It's another word we made up. To us it means a word for the world inside, and that was the world we focused on shaping the album around. As opposed to the world that everybody sees with their eyes, it's a bit more internal and looks different to every person."

The cover artwork was by British artist Paul Roberts, who was named as one of Garrick's favourite artists. The duo reached out, with the concept of "fantasy" and "a display of the world inside of us." Garrick continued, "I think it also has elements of escapism as well. A world untouched by man, and these two kids are venturing through it by themselves. It may be an imaginary world, it may be a real world. You don't really know when you look at it. It's yours to interpret."

In a Facebook post, they further elaborated on their decision for the artwork:

> "We've always loved the painted album covers in our vinyl collection, and the art on the Sniff 'n' The Tears - 'Love Action' album cover is our favourite. Curious, we start to look into the artist behind the paintings and quickly discover that Paul Roberts the frontman and Paul Roberts the painter are one in the same! It turned out during his time in the band, his painting did continue, there was one featured on the cover of each release the band put out and when they broke up, he turned focus back to his art career, creating some of our favorite paintings over the past 30 years. There's always something a bit dark and strange about his work that we love and we knew we wanted to do something a bit like that for the cover of 'Innerworld'. We knew with our music and an album cover, some people were (for lack of a better word) going to expect something "neon" from us, so we wanted to make a statement with the cover that would suggest there's something more then that going on here. There's a balance of light and dark inside everyone that we aim to reflect in our songs and to us, 'Innerworld' means the world inside, it's where these songs came from. So we reached out to Paul to see if we could work with him, not knowing what he'd say. We were so thrilled when we heard back that he was going to create a painting for 'Innerworld'! In addition, we wanted a cover that in 30 years from now, a kid discovering an old record collection can come across and wonder what's this?? Below is the painting Paul Roberts made that became the cover, along with some of our favourite paintings of his."
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## Tour

In promotion of the album, there was a ten-date tour across North America.

## References

1. ↑ Darwin, Liza (July 29, 2014). "Electric Youth Drive Band". *Nylon*.
2. ↑ Bowie, Miles (November 18, 2013). "Electric Youth – "Innocence" (Stereogum Premiere)". *Stereogum*.
3. ↑ "Electric Youth". *Facebook*. June 19, 2014.
4. ↑ "Electric Youth". *Facebook*. September 23, 2014.
5. ↑ Morris, Aaron (October 8, 2014). "Electric Youth Have No Interest In Reviving the Past". *Vice*.