It Felt Like The End of the World by Pete International Airport
Release date: September 21, 2023Label: Little Cloud Records
Back in the nineties, Dandy Warhols gathered fame and fans for some excellent psych-pop/rock albums and singles, but also for the band’s infamous feud with Brian Jonestown Massacre, another band that took a similar musical route.
Now, Peter G. Holmström who was (and it seems still is) in Dandy Warhols is back with a cast of thousands under the moniker Pete International Airport and the resulting album It Felt Like The End of The World.
That cast of thousands actually includes, among others, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive, Mojave 3), Alexander Hackett (Pang Attack), Dion Lunadon (A Place To Bury Strangers, The D4), and Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson.
Holmström explains his ideas behind the album: “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.”
As it turns out, Holmström paints quite a detailed picture of the album’s sonic’s – deep modern psych with some dark overtones with dense instrumentation and arrangements, that develop slowly through the 11 tracks here. Holmström’s lyrics match the tone of the music, and as he puts 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.”
The result is a deeply satisfying modern psych that will definitely find its place in any psych lover collection.
