When the band began, Peer Pleasure set out to “make something that our fathers could identify with, but still hate like it was a young person’s thing.” On their blistering new single ‘Pedestrian’ the band achieve just that, with retro elements that feel instantly familiar, smashed against more contemporary sounds, melodic approach and lyrics. It’s a visceral explosion of sound that feels like a sonic exorcism, stream of consciousness like lyrics are punctuated by worm holes of noise, chewing you up and spitting you back out again. It’s art punk for art punk’s sake.
The Peer Pleasure sound consists of an orchestra worth of players; Brandon Murphy taking on vocals and guitar, Joel Pitcher, Cein o Dowd and Jack Joyce make up a guitar trio, Jeff Miller on drums and Erik Murphy bass, auxiliary sounds(synth, sax, violin, percussion) are provided by Oision Conroy, Eoghan Conroy, Fiachra Carey, Sean Furey and Joseph O’Gorman, additional vocals and band wrangling is handed by Conor Kavanagh.
Across the players the band find their sound by pulling on and smashing together everything from Mark E. Smith to The Birthday Party, Captain Beefheart to 80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster and all while channelling Engelbert Humperdinck. On their new single ‘Pedestrian’ this cataclysm of sound comes to life. The track begins with 70’s space rock oscillations before the band join in with some spikey guitars, insistent drums and some saxophone flourishes. It lays the bed for either a Frank Sinatra style crooner or an Iggy Pop punk demon, what we get is something in between. Brandon begins by an admission of being ‘relatively pedestrian’ and a confession of not wanting to be an equestrian. This seemingly banal listing gives way to primal scream of sorts as the band are let of the leash. The ebb and flow the band create as guitars drop down and drums pull back before launching into another sonic assault gives the track constant tension and release, still moments in the eye of the storm. The production allows for each of the three guitars, bass, sax and sonic manipulations all to have their space while making up the Phil Spectre-esque wall of sound. Brandon turns his sights outwards listing off various celebrities while rating their equestrian abilities “Thom Yorke will never be an equestrian – Idris Alba is an accomplished equestrian – Christopher Reeves..” and judging their pedestrianism. Gerry Cinnamond and George Ezra fall a foul of Brandons sharpened tongue here. When asked about the lyrics he offers up that they are simply as “lists of sex criminals, things we like and don’t”. It’s a testament to the belief in which he delivers the lyrics as regardless of the dismissive explanation, the words feel instilled with meaning. Equestrian and pedestrian take on whole new meanings here, substitutes for a larger meaning, with each celebrity an avatar for an unknown idea. Or maybe its all just lists.
To help capture the visceral energy of the band they turned to Joe McGrath in Hellfire Studios, who in the bands words ‘works really slow, is very expensive, offers no praise and therefore inspired us to stoop as low as possible, explore every ridiculous, disgusting sounding idea, we love you, Joe.’
The artwork was done by Chloe Harte who the band worked with on previous single ‘Rest in Bits’. Taking an image of Brandon that turns him faceless, ‘totally pedestrian’ and unremarkable but still memorable.
Peer Pleasure seemingly run at the creative process with complete reckless abandonment, ready to embrace whatever sonics the can wring out from their instruments. But this isn’t mindless noise, amongst the bravado it’s considered and careful, no band can have three guitars and a saxophone and sound this coherent by accident. The production lends itself perfectly to their mutli-genre, multi-decade, sonic exploration. Brandon is all at once lightning rod for the listener and conductor of the band. His Bukowski steam-of-consciousness deluge that gives rise to Thom Yorke, Christopher Reeve and Prince Philip all being name checked in one song, feels more than a pedestrianised list of horse riders. There’s art here without falling into pretentiousness or worse still, masquerading, all wrapped up in 4 minutes and punctuate by oscillations and saxophones. Vital. Listening.
