Coda Chroma (aka Kate Lucas) is an award-winning songwriter from Ballarat, Victoria, and is described as “one of the most innovative and noteworthy musicians in Australia.” (Tone Deaf, 2021)
Coda Chroma creates music that sways between cinematic and baroque pop, with otherworldly harmonies, honest and existential lyrics, suspended in deeply nuanced production. Coda Chroma’s songs are drawn from personal dreamscapes and real life encounters, delivering poetic honesty, with a nostalgia for the unknown. She works very closely with NZ born producer Damien Charles on this cinematic Indie-Folk project, creating otherworldly arrangements and expansive musical landscapes.
In 2017 Coda Chroma invited us into her kaleidoscopic world with the release of her debut self titled album, which featured heavily on Double J and attracted a Music Victoria Awards nomination for Best Regional act. An instant underground classic full of well crafted but deceptively deep songs that shimmer with flecks of gold and grit. By turns woozy and confessional, dark and empathic, the musical terrain is vast.
After a string of national and international shows, Coda Chroma released her second album Inside The Still Life in 2019. The album’s pop sensibility only partially disguises a more intense, brooding, and cheekily existential underbelly, Teaming up once again with producer Damien Charles to pull this beautifully diverse set of songs together and create a metaphysical listening experience. Damien earned a Music Victoria “Best Producer” award nomination for his work on Inside the Still Life.
Coda Chroma toured the album nationally, including a run of Woodford Folk Festival shows, Gum Ball Festival, and supports with acts such as William Crighton, Ben Salter, Jordie Lane, Liz Stringer and Broads. Melbourne’s PBS FM named Inside the Still Life in their top ten records of 2019, 4ZZZ and 2SER featured the record as album of the week, landing it at the top of the AMRAP Metro charts, and on Double J rotation.
Coda Chroma’s third studio album Dreamself, set for release on 31 March 2023, and celebrates the liminal space between awake and asleep, where stories unfold through abstraction and try to make sense of experiences and situations. Dreamself plays with shadows and light in a landscape where fragile introspection is at home alongside upbeat jangle-pop, and synthetic sounds mess around with acoustic instrumentation. Matched with the immaculate work of producer Damien Charles, the album features a string ensemble, swirling layers of synthesisers, a driving rhythm section and ethereal backing vocals by Natalie Lewi and will be followed by a national tour featuring various string ensembles based in each destination.