by Sara Nuta (@vaguely_ethnic_)
Inspired by and echoing the theories of 20th-century Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht, the themes on Peel Dream Magazine’s latest EP, Up & Up, play out like “a little Brechtian play,” according to the NYC-based band’s founder, Joe Stevens. In their press materials, Stevens continued,“ ‘Up & Up’ is literally about feeling manipulated by the theatre of crap art.”
On Up & Up, a sense of theatrical performance feels present and considered. Viewing the EP as a play, song titles both narrate each “act” and serve as outlines to be colored in by the band’s hypnotic, spaced-out soundscapes. Within the negative space that spills out around a droning instrumental section or a dreamy vocal phrase, Peel Dream Magazine finds room to float into their expansive sound.
Their excellent 2018 debut album, Modern Meta Physic, rendered out shaggy, dream-pop songs from the haze of a collage of sonic influences (after all, their name is a reference to great BBC DJ, John Peel). These inspirations––(The Velvet Underground, Yo La Tengo, Unrest, to name a few)––never overshadowed Peel Dream Magazine’s songwriting. Modern Meta Physic was an album abstracting anachronism: ‘60s mod through the lens of fuzzy ‘90s rock––and one definitely best listened to all the way through. Since then, Peel Dream Magazine has expanded both sonically, and in their lineup, to become a full four-piece band, and this is reflected in their dynamic new songs. On Up & Up, a bit of the fog is cleared away to reveal a clearer, more defined sound without losing any of the music’s meditative properties.
Starting off with the title track and eponymous single: “Up & Up” is a blissed-out bit of dream pop, with woozy waves of synthesized notes rippling around Steven’s candle-lit vocals, recalling the likes of Stereolab or Broadcast. “Up & Up” sounds like what I imagine it feels like to count back from 10 as the anesthetic seeps in. It’s a fitting start to an EP that tackles the ethics of producing popular art and the manipulation (or perhaps mind-control) impacted on the audiences consuming it. Things begin to take a kraut-y turn on “Stare Into The Void,” as it dips into a spacey breakdown similar to those popularized by bands like NEU!; before fading into the instrumental track “Dissociation Effect,” with its metronomic-sounding rhythm that pulses like a strobe light flashing in and out of focus. “Novelty,” plays out as the most shoegaze-y of the bunch, building around washes of distorted guitars, all before the EP wraps up with the cerebral, slow-tempo closer “A Qua Being.” Once again, the lights are dimmed, and curtains closed.
Just as Brecht hoped audiences could maintain both their belief and disbelief to understand the double-nature of theatre and performance, much of Peel Dream Magazine’s music lies in the tension between two states––between anxiety and ease, detachment and intimacy, nostalgia and new-age spirituality.
Up & Up works well because it is both an experiential and an easy listen. One of the most impressive aspects of Peel Dream Magazine’s songwriting is the ability to transport, to allow audiences to dissolve within deep listening in a short amount of time (the longest song clocking in around the 5-minute mark). Their economic, and un-adorned use of drone-y repetition makes for tracks that flow easily into the next, blurring at the lines––allowing you to detach for a while, but never too far from reality––finding room to exist, as the audience, somewhere in the in-between as well. Despite their relatively new status as a band, Peel Dream Magazine has made each release sound fully-lived in and considered, which is part of what makes following their trajectory so exciting.