Husband-and-wife duo Peaking Lights combine elements of dub, Krautrock, and psychedelic pop in their unique brand of lo-fi music.
Indra Dunis (of Dynasty and Numbers) and Aaron Coyes were bandmates in the Bay Area band Rahdunes before forming a home-recording project using a drum machine, a Hammond organ, a guitar, and thick bass grooves.
2009’s Imaginary Falcons was its own genius slushpile of tape-hissy drift-dub haze anthems, no question, but peaking Lights recent album 936 takes every facet of the Peaking Lights mighty diamond and shines it to fluorescent perfection.
Peaking Lights | All The Sun That Shines
The songwriting is insane; “All The Sun That Shines,” “Amazing & Wonderful,” “Tiger Eyes (Laid Back),” etc, all seep into yr mindstream and float there like melodic gold dust. Indra Dunis’ silky soul-jazz keys and tranced vocals have never sounded so exquisite, and Aaron Coyes busts out the best bass/drum loops and sneaky dub guitar of his musical lifetime.
Recorded by Luke Tweedy at Flat Black Studios in Iowa City and mastered in Berlin, 936 retains the cool crate-digger grit of their earlier highlights, but within a much more vivid spectrum of sound.
Peaking Lights | Amazing & Wonderful
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=1ryGfukKNxI
The Brooklyn-based Bear in Heaven was initially started in 1998 as a way for Jon Philpot, who was then still living in his hometown of Atlanta, to express his musical ideas during the off hours of a local recording studio.
After he moved to Brooklyn at the end of the decade, Philpot continued working on his music, which included the duo Presocratics, who released a couple of records on the experimental label Table of the Elements. During the next couple of years, as more friends and associates from Atlanta and the South moved to Brooklyn, Philpot began assembling the group of musicians who would later make up the band.
Bear In Heaven | Lovesick Teenagers
Bear in Heaven have trapped echoes, tremors, winds, and fading light. They’ve redefined time, and folded it. They’ve unbuttoned sound, and realigned it. Within four walls in Brooklyn, Jon Philpot, Adam Wills, Sadek Bazaraa, and Joe Stickney mined the democracy of their collaboration, plus the endless hours of stream-of-consciousness recorded documentation of rehearsals over the past years, to conceive the crystalline form of Beast Rest Forth Mouth, their second album, their exaltation.
Freely acknowledging the importance of the number four, the album Beast Rest Forth Mouth (think “East West North South”) was a conscious product of the four compass points, of the four makers, and of the inevitable confusion that manifests from that crossroad mentality: four directions could lead you anywhere and everywhere. It’s the acknowledgement of what can go down at that convergence, at that dusty center, that drives Bear In Heaven and imbues the songs of Beast Rest Forth Mouth with something akin to both eternal peace and nervous urgency.
Bear In Heaven | The Reflection Of You
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=tjW5rkXiQdc
Au Palais (aka brother and sister David and Elise Commathe) released their debut EP, Tender Mercy on December 5 via The Sounds of Sweet Nothing. The EP has gained pretty accurate comparisons to the dark synth pop of Austra and Zola Jesus but Elise Commathe sings with a much more subdued voice than the howls of Katie Stelmanis and Nika Danilova.
Meanwhile, David plays a similar role in the group to that of Jamie xx in the The xx, with a focus on beatmaking that comes across most strongly on the EP’s closing instrumental track, “H.o.l.l.a.n.d.”
Au Palais | Tender Mercy
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=rC-Hfm0oyOc
This event is highly recommended by Digital in Berlin! We are giving away 2 x 2 tickets. Just send a mail to win@digitalinberlin.de with “Peaking Lights” as the subject.
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Peaking Lights, Bear In Heaven & Au Palais LIVE
Tuesday, 12 June 2012 | 20:00 CET
Festsaal Kreuzberg | Skalitzer Str. 130 | 10999 Berlin/Kreuzberg
peakinglights.com | bearinheaven.com | aupalais.bandcamp.com | festsaal-kreuzberg.de
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