Likely the sort of thing that will draw comparisons to early Goldfrapp, Dubstar, and Dot Allison, the new EP from Peakes, Pre Invented World, out on Practise Music on Friday, offers up a quartet of compositions with the sheen of electronica and the snap of post-punk. And while reviewers like me might lazily reach for those points of comparison, they're meant to give a newcomer an idea of what this sounds like. With that said, the music of the Leeds-based Peakes is fairly distinctive, not least because of the effortless grace here in the way some familiar pieces are put together in the service of the material.
"A Sacred Place" made me think of Fad Gadget a tiny bit, especially in how this lot straddle experimental music and more mainstream stuff, while "We'll Talk" suggests an updating of the Eurythmics formula on exactly how to blend those forms. This one, like other tracks here, is remarkably catchy, and I think it's no mean feat to make catchy music out of such seemingly austere forms of instrumentation.
At their very best, like on the La Roux-echoing "Careless Creation", and the bedsit funk of "On The Other Side", Peakes make this look easy. It helps that Maxwell Shirley and Peter Redshaw give this some zest, never letting things sink into the comfortable dourness of mere synth-pop, but undoubtedly so much of the success of Peakes is down to the vocals and work of Molly Puckering. Her clear, bright performances on these numbers elevate this material into something substantial and intriguing, and make it far more than just indie-pop that might be drawing upon the legacies of any of the other earlier acts I've referenced in this post.
Pre Invented World is out on Friday via Practise Music.
More details on Peakes via the official website, or the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Nick Porter]