It Felt Like the end of the World by Pete international Airport
Pete International Airport are the supergroup that revolves around Peter G. Holmstrom from The Dandy Warhols are back, with the bands third album It Felt Like The End Of The World the album the band worked on during the pandemic.
As usual Peter has enlisted Jeremy Sherrer as Mix-master/producer. Alongside among others Lisa Ells. Rachel Gosling, Daniel Parks, Lisa Molinaro, Rishi Dhir, Keiko Araki, Tom Peterson and Pansy Chang.
The album opens with Sea Of Eyes that has to be a song for our times, if you live in a city like London anyway, where those eyes are always on us. This has gauzy dystopian techno sounds ramping up the paranoia as those Eyes keep looking at you as Alexander Hackett narrates the effect of all the surveillance.
Fluid Flex has Lisa Elle's hushed vocals encased in shimmering walls of synths, computer bleeps and cymbal crashes darting across the speakers as if you are off into otherworldly places.
The Watermark Opens like a techno floor filler with Daniel Parks vocals counter to the prevailing Prodigy in a drum & bass phase feel, being more down beat than the music, especially when it goes all tribal house with sirens blaring.
Next Of Kin has some rather gorgeous reflective vocals from Lisa Elle on a wondrously laid back 21st century psychedelic tune for the end of the night, as much as the end of the world, as all the uncertainty of our times fills Lisa's waking moments.
Out Past The Razor Wire (Sigh Sigh Sigh) has Alexander Hackett wondering who will dare to go out into no man's land, to risk it all as the dreamy synths and layers of odd musical interjections accompany him on this journey out into the danger zone.
Commercial Eyez Has Jasun Adams intoning like he is a disciple of Robbie Robertson as the realization of how commerce is now watching us, almost as intently as our governments are, one false move and another ad will show in your feed for something you thought about 20 minutes ago, set against a creeping beat, existential dread synths with distended counter vocals.
The Thoughts You Won't Think are narrated by the questioning vocals of Jason Sebastian Russo on the closest this album has to a catchy pop song, as you try not to ask too many fatalistic questions, as the world turns to dread before your very eyes, while sounding like something by Sigmatropic, as the voices babble away in your head.
Tic Tac is as hazy laid back and minty fresh as it needs to be, as Rachel Goslings gauzy dreamy vocals float through the mix.
No Blindfold is built around a pulsating krautrock beat with French lyrics intoned long before Alexander Hackett comes into the washed-out sounds, trying to see the Forest for the trees, refusing the blindfold as the metaphorical firing squad stand before him.
Brave New World takes a Huxlian view on how we should emerge from the pandemic, making the world anew. Jasun Adams voice remains deadpan as all the horror unfolds, finding a way through the malaise becomes more oblique, against layers of synths, percussion weaving a tapestry of sound, giving glimmers of hope through all the trauma, as we say goodnight to the old times, welcoming in the new times, so we can feel alright once more.
The album closes with Il Canto Della Polena a string laden elegiac coda slowly building like a modern symphonic tone poem, swells of strings, glissando Piano fills, meditative as the darkened string sound, has deep brass woven into it, more like the outro for a very disturbed sci-fi epic, while still making me want to hear this piece expanded as a full symphonic work, this makes a glorious end to this most intriguing album.
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