We have been increasingly turning our attention to the West coast music scene, having recently featured a good number of artists hailing from San Francisco, Seattle, LA and Portland. Today we present yet another artist from Portland and he’s not just any artist – he is one of the music kingpins who helped to make a name for this city as one with a thriving music scene. Peter G. Holmström may have climbed to fame as a member of The Dandy Warhols, but he has another project that is equally if not more fascinating. Albeit much younger than the Dandies, Pete International Airport is quite something to behold so get it into your earbuds on the double. You will thank us, you will.
Today we have the pleasure of introducing the new album ‘It Felt Like The End of the World’, out now via one of Oregon’s coolest record labels Little Cloud Records. You only need to see their roster to agree – The Dandy Warhols, The Veldt, Magic Shoppe, The Kundalini Genie, SPECTRES, Clustersun, Sun Atoms, New Candys, Firefriend and the list goes on.
Named after a song by Holmström’s other band, The Dandy Warhols, this eclectic project nails the elusive aesthetic of unexpected yet inviting sound art. Pete International Airport’s quest to build immersive soundscapes that are also classic, catchy songs is successful, in part, due to Holmström’s uncanny ability to curate and his penchant for dropping collaborators into challenging creative spaces—both virtual and actual—then letting them duke it out.
‘It Felt Like The End of the World’ is Peter G. Holmström‘s third album as PIA – a perfectly constructed and highly potent electronically-laden psych-rock trip “into the dark heart of electronica”. Upon first listen, it is clear that this is one of the most innovative albums of 2023 in the genres and subgenres PIA touches on – as there are many, we can say they are covering a lot of great fertile sonic territory and we should all be taking advantage of these generous explorations.
Holmström explains, “This record was mostly written and recorded during the pandemic so sonically and lyrically it can’t help but be influenced by what we all went through. There is a melancholy darkness as well as a peaceful beauty. The album title came from a “fairytale/poem” that is whispered at the end of ‘Sea Of Eyes’. It perfectly captures the hopeful/scary feeling of change that comes at the end of something.”
Mixed by Jeremy Sherrer at Spooky Electric Co. (Modest Mouse, The Shins, The Dandy Warhols) and mastered by Dave Coley at Elysian Mastering, this record seems to be an indie star-studded affair – certainly the first three names to jump out at me is Slowdive goddess Rachel Goswell, Tom Petersson ofCheap Trick fame and A Place To Bury Strangers’ Dion Lunadon.
And that’s not all – here, we literally have the cream of the neo-psychedelic crop, of which The Dandy Warhols and their shadow, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, are the reigning kings. Members of Dark Horses, Omniscuro, Sun Atoms, Guiding Light and Hopewell, plus Alexander Hackett (Pang Attack), many of whom appear on multiple tracks.
The use of repetition – visually and sonically – and the use of limitations and boundaries (i.e. every Pete International Airport record has 11 songs) cements the collection into a beautifully cohesive whole that becomes more interesting with repeated listens. Peter, his long-time collaborator / producer Jeremy Sherrer, and his stable of co-creators have given us more than one album’s worth of hooks, ideas and beauty, somehow smelting them into a single monolith of sound that is accessible from any point, celebrating a world that just keeps ending.
Peter G. Holmström says, “Musically, this record started with an obsession on the bass tone/line from The Cure’s ‘Fascination Street’ and a healthy appreciation of the detail in their sonic density. Most songs start on an acoustic, which in most cases gets muted somewhere in the process. Then layers of beats, bass lines, melodies, arpeggios, etc. get added / removed until the piece of music is interesting enough to entice someone to write lyrics and sing on it. Lyrically, I might suggest a topic that captures our dark chaotic world without sounding preachy. Sometimes the singers listen to me, other times they follow what the song makes them feel.”
Please also enjoy the video for ‘Next of Kin’ featuring Lisa Elle of Dark Horses on vocals. Her commentary: “In the depths of isolation, I recall wanting to overcome the usual caution and hesitation one often experiences when faced with lots of time and choice. Recognising that life is fleeing can actually be life affirming. This is a song born of frustration and a need to push onwards full heartedly. Working with Peter remotely has been, on the one hand a private experience – developing ideas and recording by myself but also a liberating exercise in surrender and real creative acceptance”.
‘It Felt Like The End of the World’ is out now via Little Cloud Records, downloadable from fine music platforms, such as Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp, where it is also available on CD and a Deluxe double-album in a gatefold sleeve, pressed on transparent vinyl with an orange blob or on transparent vinyl with a purple blob.
CREDITS
Recorded in Portland, LA, NY, UK and Montreal
Chamber Orchestra recorded by Chris Bergstrom
Mixed by Jeremy Sherrer at Spooky Electric Co.
Mastered by Dave Coley at Elysian Mastering
Album art by Francesca Bonci
Music written by Peter G. Holmström
Vocals and lyrics by:
Alexander Hackett (Pang Attack) on ‘(Sea Of Eyes’, ‘Out Past The Razor Wire’, ‘No Blindfold’
Lisa Elle (Dark Horses) on ‘Fluid/Flex’, ‘Next Of Kin’
Daniel Sparks (Omniscuro) on ‘The Watermark’
Jasun Adams (Sun Atoms, The Upside Down) on ‘Commercial Eyez’, ‘Brave New World’
Dion Lunadon (The D4, A Place To Bury Strangers) on ‘Commercial Eyez’
Chuck Davis (The Guiding Light) on ‘Commercial Eyez’
Jason Sebastian Russo (Hopewell, The Guiding Light) on ‘The Thoughts You Won’t Think’
Rachael Goswell (Slowdive, Mojave 3) on ‘Tic Tac’
Instruments performed by Peter G. Holmström except:
Jeremy Sherrer – drum programming, MPC
Paulie Pulvirenti (Elliott Smith, Number 2, Eyelids) – drum kit, toms, octobans
Gregg Williams – toms
Cory Gray (Old Unconscious / Car Crashlander / The Delines) – piano, organ, synth
Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone) – sitar
Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) – 12-string bass
Lisa Molinaro (Talk Demonic / Modest Mouse) – viola
Louise Woodward – composer / arranger on ‘Il Canto Della Polena’
Chamber Orchestra for ‘Il Canto Della Polena’
Shin-Young Kwon – violin 1
Keiko Araki – violin 2
Charles Noble – viola
Pansy Chang – cello
Jason Schooler – double bass
Joseph Berger – French horn
Publicity by Shameless Promotion PR
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