Introducing: Pink Sky

Pink Sky is an American electronic group/collaborative art project comprising of artists – and husband and wife duo – Ryan and Angelica Hay. When we heard the brooding, gothic-tinged electronica of The Gap, we knew we needed to catch up with them to discover more about them and their music.

Could you tell us a bit about Pink Sky?

We are an ever-evolving electronic band and collaborative art project. We formed in 2016 as an instrumental band.

What inspires you to write?

Emotions, really. We both feel so much sometimes—too much—and writing music helps to offload and manage those emotions so we aren’t consumed by them. Second to that, curiosity and the joy of exploring sound inspire a lot of our music. We use several different synthesizers and a piano— and it feels like they are each embedded with songs waiting to be discovered, like their unique voices contain and transmit types of songs, and we are merely the receivers.

Who would you say has had the most influence on your music?

There are too many to name, but Nils Frahm, Kiasmos, and Rival Consoles got us into synths and introduced us to the neoclassical and current UK-based electronic landscape, while re-exploring Nine Inch Nails has recently brought us back to rock music, the music we grew up listening to.

How does the creative dynamic work between you both? Do you have specific roles?

For our first few albums, up until the pandemic, the roles were pretty well defined: Ryan wrote chords and melodies and Angelica made beats and textures. During lockdown, everything began to blur. Now, we are both writing songs and the roles are fluid and the creative dynamic is to always pass material back and forth, so it feels like pure collaboration. Each of us have our fingerprints on every song, from songwriting, mixing, and recording to production and now vocals and lyrics.

What song do you always find yourself singing along to?

Lately, First Move by Audiobooks. But honestly, all songs; even instrumental songs, which maybe should feel embarrassing to admit lol.

You have very strong visual aesthetics – is that an important element of the band identity?

Yes, we are both visual artists, and couldn’t help but consider the visual aesthetics of our performances and of the imagery associated with our albums. From the beginning, it’s felt almost as important as the music. We create and perform with live visuals – and beginning with our first album Forms, we’ve been lucky enough to work with our good friend and photographer Hwa-Jeen Na on all of the shoots, creating an album of images to go along with each LP. Our approach with Jeen has always been super collaborative, concept driven and very much in service to each album.

What artist would you love to work with?

A: Weval—that would be a dream.

R: Jon Hopkins.

Who have you got on heavy rotation right now?

A: Audiobooks

R: Jon Hopkins, Weval, Audiobooks, Angel Olsen

Was there a specific incident or inspiration behind the lyrics of The Gap?

The Gap is inspired by showing someone something special to you and it not going well.

What’s up next for Pink Sky after the release of The Gap in terms of gigs, new music…?

We just finished recording and producing our fourth LP, Total Devotion. It’ll be our first lyrical album, and we’ll be debuting the new material at our shows beginning in June. We are also going to start performing with a live drummer and multi-instrumentalist for the first time, which we are so stoked about. We can already tell that our upcoming shows are going to be our best yet. We’re also going to release another single on June 14th.

To keep up with news from Pink Sky as well as finding out more about the upcoming Total Devotion LP, be sure to follow the duo on Facebook and Instagram. You can listen to Pink Sky‘s back catalogue, including The Gap, on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music