When you think of folk-punk DIY, the Olympia based band Pigeon Pit may come to mind. With their smashing 2015 hit ‘Nights Like These’ off of Shut In, they carved a place for themselves into the scene, offering music that is reminiscent of rural hometown nights, empty parking lots, and a strange longing for the people you used to love. On January 17th, via Ernest Jenning Record Co, Pigeon Pit released their fourth album Crazy Arms.
Crazy Arms is definitely the start of the band hitting their stride, becoming comfortable in the chaos. This “chaos” holds a theme not only within the individual songs, with frontwoman Lomes Oleander describing the album as “psycho” or “a bunch of love songs for how fucked up we are, and how beautiful it is how we try anyway”, but the chaos exists within the albums recording process as well. Crazy Arms was recorded in Oleander's friend’s basement, all analog on a tape through a 4 track, meaning the record is full with mostly live tracks. The band also struggled with recording piano for the album, as first they dragged the instrument across town, only to find it would not fit in the studio they were recording in, so they played it from the basement with mics and wires running out of the studio space.
Oleander goes on to say “Working with all these insane restrictions forces you to get creative and gives the thing you’re working on a sort of living character”, which is a beautiful and important sentiment to bring into the modern day. There has been a great rise in AI with all digital media, including music, which tends to take away the body of the project, the heart and soul an artist pours their time into. Although it may be difficult, we need creativity more than ever now, and Pigeon Pit truly puts themselves on the frontlines with their album, creating this unique piece of art.
Crazy Arms is country, pop punk, experimental, truly captivating everything you could expect from Pigeon Pit, but amplified to the max. The record is yours to listen to now on various streaming platforms.
Alongside their album, Pigeon Pit has announced a series of West Coast Tour dates where you can see the 6-piece band in all of their glory live on stage. It kicks off with a record release show in their hometown of Olympia on January 24th, before starting up again in Seattle on February 27th, and ending in Portland on March 9th. They will be touring with Foot Ox, a fellow experimental and somewhat folk band from Portland. You can grab your tickets now through the band Linktree.
[ Tour Poster via @pigeon.pit on Instagram]
To keep up with Pigeon Pit, you can follow their socials below!
Related Posts
