Toronto’s Peeling have revealed the Jason Harvery-animated video for Leisure Life, which is lifted from their debut EP ‘Rats In Paradise’. Led by Kiev-born singer/guitarist Annabelle Lee and featuring Jimmy Tony Rowlinson (Dilly Dally) on bass, Denholm Whale (Odonis Odonis) on drums, and Alejandro Cairncross on guitar, the band are newly signed to Buzz Records, who released their EP this last Friday. Watch the video via YouTube below.
Building on her work in her previous project, Mexican Slang, Lee began conceptualizing Peeling in the summer of 2015, writing the songs that would make up their first EP before recruiting her bandmates and recording at Union Sound Company (Metz, Fucked Up) in December of that year. Exploring themes of sexuality, death, consumerism, religion, and mental illness, Lee describes the EP as being fundamentally about conquering fear. “It’s about shedding past traumas, transcending pain and finding a way out” she says. “It’s too easy to become disillusioned, I want to create catharsis and release.”
As the EP’s lead single, Leisure Life introduces the band at their most bruising, collating influences like The Gun Club, Chrome, The Slits, Fugazi and Les Rallizes Dénudés into a sound that immediately feels like a vital part of 2016’s musical landscape while staking out a unique place within it. As Lee tells Noisey, the song is focused on indifference and avarice, a punishing blast of hard-nosed post-punk that serves as a cutting rebuke to those who are, as the song’s lyrics put it, “making money off of war and institutional oppression.”
“‘Leisure Life’ is a song about self-interest and people with a bloated sense of entitlement” she says. “It’s about choosing the easiest route towards temporary personal gain and participating in behaviours that benefit you at the expense of others. From seeking validation through consumerism to having a warped sense of integrity under the guise of religion, it all comes down to apathy and greed.”
The band are currently on tour in support of the EP.
Track list
1. Magic Eye
2. Leisure Life
3. In The Sun
4. Wet Nurse
‘Rats In Paradise’ is out now on Buzz Records. It is available for purchase here.
Tour dates
Oct 22 – Birmingham, AL @ The Firehouse
Oct 23 – Nashville, TN @ DRKMTTR
Oct 24 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Comet
Oct 25 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Nov 4 – Toronto, ON @ Baby G
