Listen: PCRC Releases New Album 'Climax'
30 June 2015
A little over a month ago, the legendary PCRC (short for Peter Cat Recording Company) recorded some of their new album ‘Climax’ live at everyone’s favourite intergalactic haunt, Barsoom. The band mixed and mastered it in that time, recently setting up a Bandcamp page allowing us to listen and download.
The band re-launched the 8-track album last week at Social to an odd mix of loyal fans and slightly lost venue regulars - a lot of whom seemed very confused with what was playing but sportingly went along with it anyway. PCRC shuffled sleepily on to stage that Sunday night, a bit like reluctant schoolboys made to perform at an annual talent show and put up the live concert Delhi had been craving.
Climax isn’t “forward thinking”. It’s quite traditionally structured, in fact. It isn’t particularly modern and you can’t really dance to it (sway, maybe). As a band defined by old world sounds and nostalgia it isn’t (and cannot be) off-the-wall original.
Do we care? No. ‘Climax’ is a very good album. PCRC has never been in a hurried rush to make music so the album itself has been infected with the band’s languid, easygoing and quietly confident attitude. Along with the lo-fi DIY production the band (and all its offshoots) are so well known for, the album’s sound – a mix of rock, gypsy, jazz and more is comforting and familiar without being inauthentic.
‘Climax’ kicks off with some atmosphere with the instrumental ‘Clouds’, gliding into ‘I’m Home’ and the subsequent cabaret inflected tunes that follow. Apart from ‘There Is No Love Here’, which featured forgettable lyrics and clichés (though we liked the tinkering key detail in the background) – we really don’t have many negative things to say about the album. It’s arranged beautifully, beginning and ending (with the absorbing Future Soul) as a good, cohesive album should.
Every key and note has been thought of and adds to album’s texture in some ways. Listen to the entire thing below and support the band by buying their album here on bandcamp.