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Los Angeles duo Peel release their debut album Acid Star. The creative partnership of Sean Cimino and Isom Innis, their bond was initially formed as touring members of Foster The People (now both official members live & on record). The two developed a musical language all their own over the years, ideas coalescing organically until the eventual birth of Peel. Inspired in part by genre-bending Creation Records bands like Primal Scream and Madchester groups like Happy Mondays, Acid Star expands on the industrial edge of early Peel, adding layers of psychedelia, electronica, and even reverb soaked freak folk.
“I look at Acid Star as a place where all of our expressions across different mediums were able to exist in the same orbit and create something new together,” shares Innis, “Lyrically I was trying to process digital mania, boredom, and joy in the present while sonically trying to make dance music through a band lens.” Cimino adds, “This album to me a tribute to the power of words and music that transcends boundaries from start to finish.”
The album is preceded by singles “Y2J,” a psychedelic dance tune with dream pop elements, “Acid Star,” a hallucinatory comedown of washed out acoustic guitars, “Climax,” which Paste Magazine praised as a “unique convergence of post-punk, electronica and psychedelia,” “OMG” & “Cycle.”
For Acid Star, the duo began by tapping into the music that they liked as kids. That is, the music they gravitated toward before they had “any taste or judgment,” as Innis puts it. “If you think too hard, and you try too hard, you can kind of ruin the expression that comes out,” he adds. “But there’s something about trying to recreate a song that was in my DNA before taste came into it that just sounded, listening back, like it had a lot of energy and life.”
The opener, “Y2J,” was one of the results of that childhood-song experiment, and is, appropriately enough, named in reference to Y2K. “Climax,” a song inspired by the 2018 Gaspar Noé movie of the same name, is a rocket-ship ride of a tune, as much within Nile Rodgers’ wheelhouse as Spoon’s.
Each side of the album is bookmarked by ghostly ballads—“Acid Star” and “The Cloak”—both driven by acoustic guitar and gentle vocals that push home the crucially melodic underbelly of Peel itself. “You’re smiling, laughing there, my acid star,” sings Cimino on the former song, an ode to an idea of a certain ephemeral and untouchable type of rock god. “That lyric is a tribute to the power of words beyond our everyday use,” Cimino says. “I was thinking of a term for someone, something, or an idea that is so meaningful—almost too important.” When it came time to decide what to name the album itself, it was right there in front of them.
Check Paste Magazine for a band description of all tracks on the new album.
Los Angeles duo Peel have shared “Climax,” the latest preview off their debut album Acid Star, out March 29th. Inspired by the 2018 Gaspar Noé movie of the same name, the song is an urgent blend of jagged guitar stabs and disco-inspired drumming. The accompanying video see’s the band performing the song, captured on grainy VHS against the concrete backdrop of their downtown Los Angeles loft. Paste Magazine described the track as a “unique convergence of post-punk, electronica and psychedelia.”
The creative partnership of Sean Cimino and Isom Innis, their bond was initially formed as touring members of Foster The People (now both official members live & on record). The two developed a musical language all their own over the years, ideas coalescing organically until the eventual birth of Peel. Inspired in part by genre-bending Creation Records bands like Primal Scream and Madchester groups like Happy Mondays, Acid Star expands on the industrial edge of early Peel, adding layers of psychedelia, electronica, and even reverb soaked freak folk, as seen on the title track.
"The sonic landscape of Climax nods to our post-punk roots, while the spirit and rhythm propel us forward into the realm of club and dance music” shares Cimino. “The lyrics are inspired by the Gaspar Noe movie ‘Climax’ and a bizarre rave I went to in Mexico City,” explains Innis. “The movie is about a dance party gone wrong because someone spikes the punch with acid and everyone freaks out, but our song flips the perspective - a psychedelic dance party gone right where everyone has fun. At the rave I was navigating this really dark dilapidated industrial building trying to find the basement where the dance floor was. It was like a crowded maze with all these hazardous drop offs and dead ends. That tone came out in Climax, the alarming but exciting feeling of dancing into the unknown.”
“a nice dose of '70s-style folk-pop” - Brooklyn Vegan
“lush folk-rock...a distinctly engaging sound” - Flood
"If you've ever wanted to breeze up the coast highway from Los Angeles to Malibu in a convertible as the sun sets out across the glittering Pacific Ocean, Swinging Stars will take you there" - MOJO
"Mapache couldn’t escape who they are at heart: acolytes of the ’60s Haight-Ashbury scene as filtered through the more recent desert psych sound” - Paste
”worn-in and relaxed with a classic air” - Raven Sings the Blues
Mapache release a new video for album single "Encinal Canyon,"a song about singing to yourself on long windy drives through the canyons. It’s about finding a quiet place where you can gain some insight even when you feel like you’re always on the run.
Mapache's dynamic and ambitious fifth album Swinging Stars arrives August 18 on Innovative Leisure / Calico Discos - an LP of calm, second-nature swagger, cosmic folk filled with distinct styles and their most cohesive album yet.
Dutch rock band Iguana Death Cult shares their highly anticipated LP Echo Palace, following the release of three stellar singles, "Oh No," "Pushermen," and "Sensory Overload," with praise from outlets such as DIY, Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Paste, and more.
Alongside the release, the band additionally shares a music video for the record's focus track, "I Just Want A House," described as a "funky millennial nihilist anthem."
On the track, the band wrote: "O the trouble we've found ourselves in! Young people are struggling to find a decent place to live, summers have gotten so hot that vast areas of land are turning into scorched earth, not only is there a patch of plastic in the ocean the size of Texas, apparently we swallow a credit card's worths of microplastic per person every week. Human greed has pushed us to the limits of existence. But since we wrote this groovy dancing song about it, we're probably not even close to being scared enough."
Continuing on the track's accompanying video, they wrote: "Because we were playing shows in the UK, we weren't able to work on this video ourselves, so we gave Hache complete freedom to make what he wanted. He joined forces with his actor friend Nol Klis and artist Helia Rafi, who made the 3D render. 'The idea for the video was about somebody trying to run away from the city and decided to live in the forest by himself. But you can't run away from yourself!' says Hache. I think it covers the message of the song very well since it's about having trouble keeping up in a rapidly changing world and the desire to have a place of your own."
Peel debut a self-titled EP on October 16, 2020.
“...there’s a sense of disorientation and detachment, and Cimino’s vocals—which are reminiscent of Paul Banks’ in ‘Turn on the Bright Lights’—are like a guiding light.” FLOOD
“...dives into ’70s/’80s viscera, particularly the Factory Records sound and the work of producer Martin Hannett” BUZZBANDS LA
“Melding gothic post-punk with psychedelic synth-pop, “Rom-Com” casts a long, dark shadow—their retro synthesizers and gloomy textures give it a compressed, chilling feel—but its energetic grooves bring the song to life." PASTE
“Dreamy… otherworldly charms” CLASH