Category: Peel Dream Magazine

Since 2018, Joseph Stevens’ project Peel Dream Magazine (aptly named after BBC Radio 1’s John Peel) puts out music of unpredictable variety with predictable recurrence. While the band describes itself as extending the luxurious studio pop tradition of Burt Bacharach or The Beach Boys, and even as a middle point between Steve Reich and Sufjan Stevens (!), any attentive listener will recognize in its sound the influence of luminaire indie acts: the softest parts of Yo la Tengo and The Clientele, the playful lightness of Stereolab and The High Llamas.

Pad tries to solve the same dilemma of the pop music that influences it: how does one follow a recipe for composition without becoming formulaic? How can we carefully engineer simplicity; forge, out of patterns of predictability, some original and compelling songs? With Pad, the answer lies within the ingenious little refrains of synth, which form a homogeneous blanket that continually pours over the arrangements of bells, drums, and nostalgic vocals.