SPILL NEW MUSIC: BLACK PEACHES DEBUT “RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAMS, CARPENTERS”

BLACK PEACHES DEBUT “RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAMS, CARPENTERS”

GET DOWN YOU DIRTY RASCALS OUT MARCH 4th ON 1965 RECORDS

Following the recent news of their debut record Get Down You Dirty Rascals (due out March 4th on 1965 Records) and the unveiling of their first single ‘Fire & A Water Sign,’ Black Peaches have shared their second single ‘Raise High The Roofbeams, Carpenters’ The track proves a brilliantly ambitious, funk-fueled narrative that vacillates from influences of disco, jazz and rock, barreling through time signatures and key changes in a toe-tapping frenetic glory. Drawing a detailed fictional scenario of a woman accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, Smoughton—a noted Arthur Miller fan—uses these different elements of music to create an immersive musical conversation between the accusers and the accused. The results: utterly engrossing.

Black Peaches is the new project of Rob Smoughton, probably best known as a long-time member of Hot Chip and Scritti Politti, while his alter-ego Grovesnor has released a number of albums to critical acclaim.

A midway point between the swamp and the tropics, Black Peaches’ music is gloriously loose-limbed and strung-out: a psychotropic stew of country boogie, spiritual jazz and funk.

With slide guitars, Latin percussion and shimmering keyboards, the Peaches sound is a cinematic experience, the soundtrack to a bar fight at the country disco or an incantation of the black arts. At other times they swagger with the easy confidence of Little Feat, Manassas, or Dr. John to create a pulsating, unwinding groove for a hot summer’s day where no one is in too much of a hurry.

Black Peaches is not just a sextet, but in the mind of Smoughton, a destination where various strands of musical flavor and color coalesce. What results is a heavenly brew, equal parts melody, groove, grit and bliss.

Black Peaches demanded a band format so, Smoughton sent his initial demos to musicians he hoped to rope in, like Nick Roberts, Grosvenor’s live drummer, and Charlie Michael (The Severed Limb, Shock Defeat), a master of Brazilian percussion. Smoughton had played with bassist Susumu Mukai in (Hot Chip frontman) Alexis Taylor’s live band. Duelling guitarist Adam Chetwood, is a fellow country and jazz fan and plays pedal steel too. Thomas Greene (Cold Specks) on keyboards completes a consummate line-up that added ideas to Smoughton’s demos, which he took away and wrote more parts for.

Inspirations of the band include ’70s Nashville combo Barefoot Jerry and their guitarist Mac Gaden, summed up in that combination of southern soul and country fusing together with Caribbean or South American music seeped in.

Steven Stills’ first post-Crosby Stills Nash & Young ensemble Manassas was a blueprint in terms of Black Peaches’ line-up, with percussion and pedal steel.

Then from Brazil, the rhythm section of Baden Powell Sambas’1966 album Os Afro Sambas and the double guitar attack of the psych-tinged Novos Baianos, alongside Chicago’s funky post-rockers 5Style and Krautrock legends Can.

Black Peaches
Get Down You Dirty Rascals
1965 Records
Release Date: March 4, 2016

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GET DOWN YOU DIRTY RASCALS TRACK LISTING:

1. Double Top
2. Chops On Tchoupitoulas
3. Fire & A Water Sign
4. A Rainbow Appears In Saturn’s Ring
5.Hanging Moon
6. Below The Waves
7. Suivez-Moi
8. Pomegranate Morning
9. Raise High The Roofbeams, Carpenters

BAND LINKS: