Description

The sound of PEAKES has always been steeped in isolation, crafting hymnal electro-pop that floats, weightless and suspended, over the world they move through. Using the lens of nostalgia as a kind of refuge, their synth-led dreamscapes defy any sense of time and place: their sound is both current, yet transportive like a memory.

Since their formation in 2017, vocalist Molly Puckering, synth-player and producer Max Shirley and drummer Pete Redshaw, have been solidifying what it means to be PEAKES. With a smattering of EPs and singles laying out their statement of intent, each one a run-up growing in momentum, their trajectory was clear: get into the studio and bring the music to the stage. This was the plan for the Leeds-based trio in 2020 ? until the world stopped. No one could have predicted that touring and recording, an artist?s lifeblood, would grind to a global halt, and PEAKES could never have predicted that in a year defined by impossibilities, they would make their debut album, Peripheral Figures.

?I think last year, when you had everything taken away from you, it made it easier to try something new,? says Molly. Having released their four-track EP Pre-Invented World on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst the world?s disorder, their music fell into a void: the appetite for new music had understandably dried up, and there was nothing PEAKES could do to change that. So rather than dwell on it, they took a step back and returned to the drawing board and went back to basics, learning to fall in love with music again through the purest sense of creation.

Yet despite the logistical hurdles they had to overcome during the pandemic, where ten minutes might as well have been ten thousand miles away, Peripheral Figures is their most personal, hands-on project yet ? and it?s entirely their own. Molly recorded her vocals in the wardrobe of her bedroom, while Pete?s drums were sent in a file-sharing back and forth over email: a departure from the sessions they?d had with producers in fully-fledged studios. ?This is the closest that we wanted everything to sound like,? Max says. ?Whereas before, it was someone else?s vision too, this time, we?ve had the final say, and it feels great.?

The suspended time allowed them to experiment without a timeframe, having the opportunity to dedicate hours to perfecting the details, rather than minutes. What started as a means of escapism developed into an album which not only serves as the definitive realisation of PEAKES? potential, but acts as a capsule for the universal feeling of isolation channelled through boundless imagination.

PEAKES? music is a catalogue of reference points, from essentials such as Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and New Order to the ambient techno of Haruomi Hosono and the wonky German electro-beats of Grauzone. While Max is indebted to 80s new age, Molly looks to the female-led electronic renaissance of the 00s, with Portishead, Goldfrapp and Moloko being enormously influential for her own approach as the band?s frontwoman.

The band met at university while they were studying at the Leeds Conservatoire in 2017 after cramming into an eight-bed house together, discovering that they shared a similar vision. Molly, as well as being PEAKES? vocalist and lyricist, is also the architect behind the ?silent stuff?, having styled all their outfits with an eye for dreamy, whimsical aesthetics that they bring into their artwork. Max, whose multi-hyphenate role extends to lyrics, production and instrumentation, brings a meticulous eye for detail that means that every track is finished to a sky-high standard, and Pete is PEAKES? grounding force and peacemaker ? not to mention their roadman (he?s the only one with a driver?s license).

With the release of Peripheral Figures, PEAKES feel one step closer to their vision than ever: their debut album was hard-won, and yet stands brightly as an example that out of trauma, there is a possibility to build something beautiful.

Description

The 200 year long story of The Castle Hotel is woven not just into it’s bricks and mortar, its Victorian tiles or its mosaic floors. It’s a feeling that you can’t put your finger on. It’s in its people. In its memories. And in the layers of history built up over centuries of experience.

The Castle Hotel started life in 1776, although records show that there has been a dwelling on the site since the 1400s. Over the course of a century the pub changed name several times, trading first as The Crown and Sceptre, then The Crown and Anchor and later The Clock Face. In the late nineteenth century the pub was acquired by Kay’s Atlas Brewery and started a new chapter as The Castle Hotel; which is probably when the current tiled façade and bar were added. In the early 1930s Frederic Robinson took over Kay’s Atlas Brewery and, consequently, The Castle Hotel.

The pub’s now deeply cemented relationship with the city’s music scene probably began when it was a stopping off point for people on their way to Band on the Wall.

In 1979, a now legendary John Peel interview with Ian Curtis took place here, weaving The Castle further into the fabric of Manchester’s musical heritage. Sadly, The Castle fell on hard times and closed it’s doors in 2008. This cherished public house was not to remain closed for long though, and in 2009 friends Jonny Booth and Rupert Hill took over The Castle Hotel and set about bringing the decrepit building back to life.

After a period of restoration which saw the infamous leaky roof replaced and the pub’s entire interior sympathetically brought back in line with it’s rich heritage, the renovation was completed in October 2010 with the grand unveiling of the new Music Hall and Theatre at In The City 2010.

So that’s the story so far. And now The Castle Hotel is ready for it’s next chapter; one which will see this historical drinking house continue to evolve at the beating heart of Manchester’s creative communities. So come along, pull up a stool, and become a part of our story.

66 Oldham Street,

Manchester,

Greater Manchester,

England,

M4 1LE.

0161 237 9485