ARTIST: Pit Er Pat
TITLE: Pyramids
LABEL: Thrill Jockey Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 184kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 42m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-10-10
RIP DATE: 2006-09-27
Track List
----------
1. Brain Monster 4:17
2. Seasick (Hang Ten) 2:45
3. Time Monster 3:39
4. Baby's Fist 3:06
5. Swamp 5:43
6. Pyramid 3:10
7. No Money = No Friend 4:05
8. Solstice 4:14
9. Rain Clouds 3:36
10. Skeletons 3:22
11. Moon Angel 4:04
Release Notes:
http://www.piterpat.com/
http://www.myspace.com/piterpat
http://www.thrilljockey.com/
Pit er Pat is the Chicago-based trio of keyboardist Fay Davis-Jeffers, drummer
Butchy Fuego and bassist Rob Doran. When approaching a title for the new album,
the follow up to 2005Æs Shakey, each member of Pit er Pat remembers coming
across pyramids in various forms: in random images they encountered, in the
course of personal reading, and even in their own drawings. Pyramids were
everywhere it seemed, and the strength and symbolism of that shape clicked for
the band with the themes of the new album and their nature as a three-piece.
Powerful rhythms provide the solid floor for ethereal melodies and layers of
textural samples on Pyramids. Contemporaries describe Pit er PatÆs sound as
distinctively modern and fresh. Doran and FuegoÆs vocals often flit with
Davis-JeffersÆ in an exchange evoking haunting innocence. Contrasts are also
present lyrically. On the fatalistic ôTime Monsterö, Fay illuminates the
misconceived promises of passing time:
Time doesnÆt care / makes no decisions / they have already been made. / It just
moves round the circle / as it always has and always will. / Reminding you in
itÆs stableness / of your own temporality/ your brief life / your dying/ the
world didnÆt notice you lived at all.
While that kind of seemingly ominous imagery is repeated on Pyramids, there is
also an equally heavy presence of openness and possibility uniting the dualities
that this band has come to represent.
Pit er Pat toured extensively through most of 2005 and made their first full
circuits of the US and Europe, including tours with Sam Prekop, Menomena and
Need New Body. Playing more than 110 shows together made them better as a band
and synthesized the sonic evolution that Pyramids represents. But rather than
going into the studio with a list of finished songs to put on tape, Pit er Pat
instead carried with them the creative momentum that those tours had fueled,
recording the music as it came together organically, capturing the sounds at
their most fresh.
As with their last release, the 3-D Message EP, Pit er Pat recorded this album
at Soma Studios with John McEntire. Pyramids was recorded and mixed in just 11
days û enough time for the band to fully develop their inspirations, while
keeping things performative energetically and capturing the details often lost
in the club PA. ItÆs clear that McEntire was very much in-tune with their
musical ideas, reflecting the bandsÆ creativity back on itself in order to aid
the full and fluid realization of their ideas.
Pyramids is Pit er PatÆs second full album and sixth release overall. Utterly
unique and difficult to pin down with musical comparisons, itÆs by far the
bandÆs most comprehensive effort to date.