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Los Angeles duo Peel have shared “OMG,” the latest preview off their debut album Acid Star, out March 29th via Innovative Leisure. A rich sonic tapestry that shows off the duo’s songwriting chops and wide ranging influences, the band’s Isom Innis shares that the song is “about a psychedelic experience I had with my wife where I could see all these beautiful geometric shapes shooting from her forehead. Looking back, I think we tapped into a nostalgic space where a lot of musical ideas flowed in a very short amount of time.”
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.
“OMG” is preceded by singles “Y2J,” a psychedelic dance tune with dream pop elements, “Acid Star,” a hallucinatory comedown of washed out acoustic guitars, and “Climax,” which Paste Magazine praised as a “unique convergence of post-punk, electronica and psychedelia.”
Ahead of the release of their forthcoming LP, Echo Palace (due 5/12), Dutch rock band Iguana Death Cult return with a brand new single entitled "Oh No." Previously, the band shared two stellar singles, "Pushermen" and "Sensory Overload," and this new track continues the hype in anticipation of the record's drop in May.
Wrote the band of the track: "Inspired by Dutch writer Jan Cremer, I decided to write a song about how incredibly amazing I am. This sort of self-mythification seemed funny to me since I spend most of my days wallowing in doubt and worry. In the end it became a metaphor for how we polish up our lives to near perfection on our social media accounts, while mental health problems are becoming more norm rather than an exception."
To accompany the new single, the band has also shared a music video, on which they wrote:
"One night, I played the new record for our good friend Max. When 'Oh No' came on and I heard myself sing the first line, I knew it; We have to get this guy in a knight costume. Max is a 6 foot 5 berserker but also one of the sweetest guys I know. We had so much fun making this video even though it was freezing and we had to hide from the rain every ten minutes. The banter you can have with this guy is unprecedented. One of the sharpest tongues in the game. Everything was filmed in Rotterdam again. Can't represent this beautiful city enough! Because this song has a bit of an old school Iguana feel to it, Hache wanted to use a lot of video distortion like he did back in the day when he made the videos for our first record."
In celebration of their forthcoming album, Iguana Death Cult made an appearance at this year's SXSW (Austin, TX), where they played a total of nine showcases. Following the festival, Paste Magazine noted that the band was one of the "20 Best Acts" they saw there: "I knew I had to see Iguana Death Cult as soon as I heard the band’s name. And they didn’t disappoint. From the word 'go,' the whole crowd was dancing and pushing to their garage and psych-rock extravaganza."
"His style is all his own" - NPR
"Brisk, self-contained, a little mysterious, and catchy enough to revisit again and again" - Paste Magazine
"Waterhouse remains as spirited as he is studious, crooning and belting at all the appropriate moments with a little bit of swagger." - All Music
After a sold-out European tour and ahead of the release of the documentary As The Wind – The Enchanted Life of Eden Ahbez, Nick Waterhouse releases ‘Monterey’ – a song long considered lost to the public by the legendary composer of the popular standard ‘Nature Boy’.
“There existed only a demo acetate recording of a member (John Harris) of the cult Los Angeles doo-wop group the Rivingtons which made its way to my ears via my Californio brethren Matt Correia (Allah-las),” says Waterhouse.
“In a way, it feels divined to have been delivered to me by these means, cut at the historic Western 2 studios in Hollywood, and played with such esteemed and familiar musical company - the rhythm section of Brian Lang on bass and Eric Jackowitz on drums, pianist Lee Pardini, second guitar John Anderson, and lead tenor saxophonist Mando Dorame. Pay close attention to the undertow pull as the band crests and the pre-solo bars drop into Mando’s loamy lead. I hope it takes you far away, but not too far from shore…”
A new documentary is set to release later this year, and this feels like an excellent time to join the pantheon of artists who have cut Eden’s material. ‘Monterey’ will be released digitally and on a limited 7” pressing.
Peel is the debut project from Sean Cimino and Isom Innis; both multi-instrumentalists, as well as a visual artist and producer respectively. The project was born from a month-long recording session between the two artists within Innis’s concrete loft, above the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Naturally, the cavernous space served as an industrial incubator for musical experimentation: where fleets of sewing machines once reverberated in the 1930s with metallic rhythms, now echoed a wall-of-sound of drums, amps, and modular synthesizers. Inspired by such legendary records like Second Edition [Public Image Ltd.] and The Pleasure Principle [Gary Numan]; records where spirit and improvisation guided expression.
Debut single ‘Rom-Com’ is available on all digital platforms. Check the Paste Magazine post for more information.