Singles Club - Premiere Edition: Weird Pennies (of Raleigh)

"Remember that you do not have to freak out." Sage advice, though perhaps a bit of an eyebrow-raiser when the line isn't coming from a well-meaning advice-giver but being sung amidst a clamor of chaotic aural contortions. It's as if Weird Pennies (of Raleigh) is more than a little down with contradictions. And that's a good thing. 

"Freak Out," the song in question premiering right here, can be found on the Pennies' forthcoming EP Popular Wisdom (out October 2nd). When working on the song, singer Thomas McNeely was "trying to write a song that was based around a hypnotic rhythm and didn't rely on too many words." And "Freak Out" is just that - exhilarating and hypnotic right off the bat. Absorbing some of the sounds the band listened to at the time, the cutting riffage takes some cues from Television and The Soft Boys, while the softer, curvier synthiness is a nod to Animal Collective and (yes) Simon & Garfunkel.

All in all, the EP is full of mercurial maneuvering, letting shine the band's self-proclaimed sonic ethos of planting "pop seeds into some bizarre rock soil and let the fruits rot" in all manner of ways. You'll definitely want to get your hands on this on release day, y'all.      



[posted 9.27.16]