Petrol Station are hailing from Czech Republic and they just recently released their new, second e.p. called Tracy. There are five songs on this one and music of Petrol Station can be described as modern pop punk. You know how this one sounds, clever mixture of melodic punk rock and pop, with some old school grungy influences here and there and emo/alternative with nice vocal lines, great backing vocal harmonies and superb songwriting, especially the title song which stays in your ears long after you finished listening. Keyboard work and sometimes dreamy electronics and samples only add to sweet and melancholic atmosphere. Songs are emotional and beautiful, like for example another personal favorite of mine called Honesty. This is good one, I wait eagerly for new music, definitely a band to remember.
Distributed by Revolver USA & Cargo UK Co-released with Tough Love Records (London)
“Party Store” is about repetition – generation to generation and within a life. It’s also about the almost altar-like character of some corner store counters: the kid photos and signed dollar bills and lucky charms and out-dated notices and ancient advertisements and winning tickets. Around here, I call corner stores corner stores, but that sounded like a terrible name for a song. I’m from the East Coast where we called corner stores “bodegas”, which is also a terrible name for a song. So we went with the Midwestern American version, “party store”, and figured we could get away with it as Aaron is from Indiana. – Karina Gill, 2021
>> Cindy’s third LP arrives in quick succession, the quietly devastating 1:2. Jesse Jackson on bass, Simon Phillips on drums and Aaron Diko on keyboards weave the perfectly thin web behind Gill’s slow Velvety strums and murmured melodies. The rhythm section brings the crude flow, while the keys add subtle and surreal counterpoint to the withering world Gill depicts in her lyrics. “Songs tie together seemingly disparate things by the logic of mood,” Gill tries to explain. This isn’t dream-pop sunshine bliss; half-closed black drapes hang on the window where the narrator stares into the middle distance. “Sometimes you say you’re feeling small/You plan all day for your own funeral”, she intones in Party Store. Gill has a way of halting her phrasing that makes it feel like her thoughts are gently tumbling into the abyss. It’s this unsettling quality mixed with the hazy atmosphere that makes Cindy’s new LP 100% addicting and the perfect antidote to comfort listening. – Glenn Donaldson, 2021
Ahead of their first UK tour-dates kicking off this month, Mexican five-piece Sei Still are today announcing their second album ‘El Refugio’ and sharing the first single and video, ‘Extrarradio’. Due out November 26th on Fuzz Club Records, the new album – which arrives following their self-titled debut LP released in April 2020 and already on its second vinyl pressing after selling out extremely quick first time around – marks a number of changes for the band. Not only have they upped sticks and moved from Mexico City to Berlin, but their sound has undergone a process of evolution too.
Where the debut LP was an exercise in mesmerising Krautrock channeling the likes of Neu! and Can, ‘El Refugio’ keeps hold of that motorik pulse but trades the debut’s more expansive and hypnotic tendencies for a collection of dark, wiry post-punk vignettes.
Talking about the newly announced ‘El Refugio’ LP, the band said: “The biggest influence on this record was the fact that our personal lives had a radical change and we felt the need to do something different, to dig deeper into the possibilities of what the band was about. We never wanted to make the same record twice.” The move from Mexico to Germany was enough of an upheaval in and of itself, but considering they did so mere weeks before entering lockdown gives one possible explanation as to why the new material feels more emotive and visceral than before.
Expressionist rather than psychedelic in intent, they say that ‘El Refugio’ “alludes to childhood, dreams, desire, loneliness, paranoia and hope. A longing for a different reality that breaks the monotony of daily life. It’s more about sensations than something you can describe in words. I think what makes music great is that it has to be experienced so we try to part from a specific mood or emotion, which is something very abstract that people can interpret in their own way.”
Sei Still is composed of Sebastián Rojas (Organ / Synths), Mateo Sánchez Galán (Guitar), Jerónimo Martín (Drums / Percussion) and Lucas Martín (Vocals / Guitar). The band was born when they decided to take a random trip to some desolate woodlands outside of Mexico City to work on a couple of songs that would end up leading them to start a fully-fledged band. With just a couple of singles behind them (2017’s ‘Oto’ and 2019’s ‘Tácticas de Guerilla Urbana’), they soon picked up a fast-growing reputation in Mexico – sharing the stage with the likes of Stereolab, Kikagaku Moyo, Institute & Lorelle Meets The Obsolete – before signing to the London-based label Fuzz Club Records for their 2020 self-titled debut album, which quickly solidified a new European fan-base for the band.
Now based in Berlin, the forthcoming ‘El Refugio’ LP is undoubtedly set to expand on that; preceded as it is by UK tour-dates, headline dates in Berlin and shared bills with the likes of Faust, Beak, The KVB, A Place To Bury Strangers and label-mates The Underground Youth.
UPCOMING SHOWS 28/09 – Brest (FR) – Cabaret Vauban 29/09 – Paris (FR) – Supersonic (FR) 30/09 – Brighton (UK) – Exchange 01/10 – London (UK) – The Victoria 02/10 – Chelmsford (UK) – Hot Box 03/10 – Manchester (UK) – The Peer Hat 04/10 – Glasgow (UK) – The 13th Note 05/10 – Leeds (UK) – Magbate Beach 06/10 – Birmingham (UK) – Nortons Digbeth 07/10 – Penryn (UK) – The Fish Factory 08/10 – Bristol (UK) – Exchange 09/10 – Hastings (UK) – The Piper 19-20/11 – Berlin (DE) – Synästhesie Festival
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 