The Orange Peels
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The Orange Peels

Boulder Creek, California, United States | Established. Jan 01, 1997 | INDIE

Boulder Creek, California, United States | INDIE
Established on Jan, 1997
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"Heavy as hell, wide open as the sky"

The Orange Peels, Begin The Begone

I have literally zero idea why the Orange Peels aren’t more famous/beloved than they are. They have a cult following, sure; but there’s something so damn likable and perfect about their blend of power-pop, classic Byrdisan jangle and early-70s easy listening that makes it, like, the only summer car music you need. Dude, that is important. Man, you really need to hear Begin The Begone, their latest if you don’t believe me about the inherent and stunning summeriness of this group, okay? The press materials say that the album was recorded in the wake of a near-fatal car accident for band leaders Allan Clapp and Jill Preis-Clapp, but rather than being darker than their usual stuff it is, if anything, even more life-affirming and bright and sparkling (and ironically, perhaps, even more perfect for car listening). Clapp’s voice rings out like a bell, the harmonies are clear and precious and perfect, the guitars chug magnificently and nifty little keyboard/synth/horn touches abound.

The album kicks off with the bracing “Head Cleaner,” a magnificent and righteously-hooky sing-a-long, and goes from there: the stunningly beautiful and deeply trippy “New Moon,” the Carpenters-y (or perhaps Rundgren-y?) “Embers,” the gorgeous and expansive and life-affirming “9” (“Oh, we’ll be fine,” he sings, I’m sure telling himself and his wife that, but it works equally well on the rest of us), the pretty, chimey album-closer “Wintergreen” which sounds like it might belong on an an Emmit Rhodes record you haven’t heard yet. And perhaps best of all, the moving, jazzy “Satellite Song,” which reminds me of mid-period Lennon (circa-Walls and Bridges, my favorite) with one of those gorgeous descending chord progressions that never fail to destroy me when I hear ‘em.

I tested this for you: Begin The Begone sounds so good on your car radio with the windows rolled down and the volume really really loud. This is an important thing. California pop is, you know, Californian in nature, meaning it takes on the nature of that state (bright colors, bright sunshine, breezes, ocean) and all that stuff belongs on a highway in your car with the breeze blowing through your hair and the radio turned all the way up, you know? That’s not to say this is a fluffy album — quite the contrary. It’s blend of melody, chunky riffs, gorgeous harmonies, delicious arrangements are deep as hell. It’s just that they sound like the wide open sky, and that’s one hell of a thing. - L'étoile Magazine


"An exhilarating wash of kaleidoscopic beauty"

It’s a given fact that a crisis or tragedy can bring about creativity, and although the Orange Peels are known for possessing an incredibly fertile imagination, Begin the Begone” draws inspiration from a fairly recent encounter.

Lead singer, guitarist and keyboardist Allen Clapp and his bassist wife Jill Pries were stopped in traffic and smacked from behind by a drunk driver. Thank goodness, Allen and Jill were not injured, but the incident provided much food for thought, resulting in yet another collection of ear candy from Northern California’s widely admired band.

The Orange Peels, which also features the talents of lead guitarist John Moreman and drummer Gabriel Coan, have always been a courageous lot. But Begin the Begone — set for release May 5 via Mystery Lawn Records — examines the band on a serious exploration trip, as new buttons are pushed left and right.

A commanding swagger, combined with shades of glammy boogie fever navigates “Head Cleaner,” and the Moody Blues-styled “New Moon” is clad in an exhilarating wash of kaleidoscopic beauty. Blinking piano exercises, layered with a whirling psychedelic finish takes the reins on “Wintergreen,” where the sunburst signals of “Satellite Song” references the experimental brilliance of acts like the Beach Boys and the Millennium.

Lodged in the instrumental section of Begin the Begone, there’s the sweet and sparkly glare of “Tidepool” and “Post & Beam,” an edgy drum solo dotted with some space-age sound effects. Heavy but harmonious guitar riffs, boosted by tight and clutching rhythms comprise “9,” while “Embers” and “Fleeing The Scene” log in as key examples of the band’s distinguished flair for writing, playing and producing crafty music.

Allen’s clear and melodic vocals are at the top of their game throughout Begin the Begone, as is the band’s performances. Constantly resonating with each other, the Orange Peels have definitely surpassed themselves on this remarkable album, and that’s a comment not to be viewed lightly since everything they do demands praise. Standard pop rock angles, mixed with symphonic flurries, progressive arrangements, and supernatural hues are the elements ingrained in these greats songs that grip both the brain and the body. - Something Else


"Brainy and handcrafted"

The Orange Peels' long career dedicated to crafting beautiful adult pop music almost came to a grisly halt when the band's Allen Clapp and Jill Pries were rear-ended by a drunk driver while they were on the way to a play a show. Luckily, they escaped with bumps and bruises and made it to the gig on time. The brush with death led them to return to the studio a bit sooner than planned and crank out their next album. Recorded in a mere five days, and with Clapp's fellow bandmembers (bassist Pries, guitarist John Moremen, and drummer Gabe Coan) contributing to the songwriting and arrangements, Begin the Begone continues the group's string of releasing the kind of pop music fans of Prefab Sprout or Aztec Camera should love. This time out, the sound is a little more mysterious, a little darker overall, with lots of moody keyboards and heavier drums. Clapp too sounds like he's singing about serious issues on tracks like "Fleeing the Scene" and "Satellite Song." Not too surprising considering the life-quaking experience he went through. It's not a gloomy album by any stretch since Clapp's still got a knack for writing nimble melodies and the arrangements allow for plenty of warmth and light. There are even a couple of almost tough-sounding rockers in the mix this time out: "Embers" is built on happily rollicking piano, but the insistent rhythm and jagged guitars create some fire; the echoing "Head Cleaner"'s pounding drums and Clapp's soaring vocals make it sound like the leanest and meanest XTC song ever. Add a couple of instrumentals to the lineup (the spacy "Tidepool" and the weird little "Post & Beam") along with some epic ballads with ripping guitar solos -- the guitars sound great throughout -- and it's classic Orange Peels. A little more dramatic, a little deeper-sounding in spots, but still the same brilliant pop band for people who like it brainy and handcrafted. - All Music


"Breathtaking weightlessness"

Sun-soaked West Coast power-pop meets rock-geeked apple-cheeked psychedelia inside TOP’s old-school revolutionaries where breath-taking weightlessness spreads from heady experiments to gutsy productions. Joyful orchestral cleverness converge in sharp, harmonic commerce and sentimental effervescence as, “Begone,” spawns smooth groovy tunes; shiny compositions whose tie-dyed jangle wears synth-pop spangle and six-string symphonies glistening in singer-songwriter petitions ride candy-coated rollercoasters in radio-friendly memories. - Maximum Ink


"The Orange Peels: New Layers of Music"

If you had Bay Area indie combo the Orange Peels pegged, just peel back the glossy pure-pop shell, lend an ear to its new album, "Sun Moon," and you'll find a juicy, vulnerable new incarnation, especially when the bravura finale, "Yonder," rolls around, and vocalist and bandleader Allen Clapp, in full-throated falsetto Freddie Mercury mode, entreats, "Take my hand," as the rest of the band takes off for space-rockin' parts once left unexplored.

"I'm just trying to keep up with the intensity of the band, y'know," explains Clapp, 45, his tweed cap bent over another mind-blowing phosphate at Ice Cream Bar, as his bassist wife, Jill Pries, digs into a coconut, almond and chocolate sorbet nearby. "When I would listen to those tracks, I'd think, 'Wow, there's a lot of intensity. There's a lot of emotion happening here, so I gotta match that.' Who cares if I'm comfortable with it or not?"

A chuckle bubbles up. "I'm going to do it because that's what needs to be done."

That's the carpe diem beauty of the Orange Peels' latest, fifth album: It's taking the once-besuited lo-fi pop band - and its followers - out of controlled "Meet the Beatles"-esque comfort zones and into a kind of "White Album" wilderness, thanks to the collaborative songwriting of sometime-Half Japanese guitarist John Moremen, who moved from drums, and the addition of Carta drummer Gabriel Coan.

Songs like "The Words Don't Work" and "All at Once" tap the California-sunshine pop hooks of the past, though here the parts break from classic forms, the playing feels looser and the layering maximal. Clapp, too, assumes unfamiliar roles, be it the brash romantic of "Yonder" or the anxious Luddite of "Your New Heroes" warbling, "Seems like the ones and zeroes have become the new heroes."

The new sounds seem to call for new voices, agrees Clapp, who literally took it up a notch. "When it came to coming up with lyrics and vocal melodies for the stuff that was really collaborative, I felt like, 'Wow, I don't know who this character is because the song sounds different from what I'm used to singing.' So I had to invent these characters to populate these songs. They do crazy, dramatic vocal things I haven't really done before.

"It feels pretty good, actually. I kind of wish I'd done this before - it feels like I've been freed up somehow, and maybe that's why the lyrics seem more expansive."

Those new freedoms mark the Peels' latest transformation since its start in 1997. This time, at the urging of Pries, the foursome started playing together without songs already written by Clapp. Within an hour they knew they had something, and in his home recording studio, the vocalist recalls, "I'd listen to the stuff the next day and be like, 'What is this?' "

The free-range spirit of "Sun Moon" continues to this day: A recent Kickstarter campaign raised more than $4,000 for the vinyl pressing, and the current tour will see the group playing the entire new LP, front to back - another first.

Transformation certainly is in the air, and who knows, after "Sun Moon's" touring, the Peels might even get a house and get to work on breaking its four-year album cycle.

"I think that earlier in our career, if we had come up with something like this, I would have been scared by it," Clapp marvels. "I had a very definite idea of what I wanted the band to be like, and now I have no idea what my band is. I just know I like the music."

If you go:
The Orange Peels: 7 and 10 p.m. Friday. $12.50-$15. Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market St., S.F. (415) 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com. - San Francisco Chronicle


"The Orange Peels Fly to the Sun and the Moon"

The official press release for “Sun Moon,” the new album by veteran Bay Area band the Orange Peels, says that the quartet “finds itself navigating the confluence of post rock, indiepop, space rock, nouveau psychedelia, and prog rock, with melody as its only compass.” And then it adds, cheekily, “That’s probably what some critic will say anyway.” Our critic, Steve Hochman, says that’s about right. Here’s his review.

For a genre that pretty much owes its existence to the most inventive, most chance-taking, most unorthodox of popular music icons - perhaps you’ve heard of the Beatles - the style known as power-pop has by and large been locked, frustratingly, into orthodoxy. For decades, the realm has produced a parade of acts seeming to have the goal of sounding like their heroes, rather than being as creative, distinctive and individualistic as the heroes.
So when any nominally power-pop band shows even the slightest sense of invention, it can seem, well, heroic. Maybe it’s brash that the Orange Peels titled one of the songs from its new “Sun Moon” album “Your New Heroes.” Maybe it’s tongue-in-cheek. Maybe it’s commentary on slavish hero worship. Whatever the intent, it’s one of the clear examples that on “Sun Moon” there’s more than the slightest sense of invention. Each song, at the very least, brings new ideas and idiosyncratic twists to old forms, the kind of things that made such acts as Big Star, Squeeze and Crowded House their own name brands within the larger form. At its best, as on the ‘70s-referencing “Bicentennial Bridge,” “Sun Moon” holds the kind of playful, experimental spirit that marked one of power pop’s most individualistic figures, Todd Rundgren.

The trick with “Sun Moon” is that after more than 15 years and four albums of enticingly formalist -- though not formulaic -- variations on familiar styles, the Orange Peels took some new approaches. In the past, singer and primary songwriter Allen Clapp came in with material largely written and ready to go. But with other projects occupying him, co-founding bassist Jill Pries convened the band for collective writing and recording sessions marked by a sense of freedom.

Some other changes also stimulated creativity, as John Moremen, who had bounced between drums and guitar in the past, concentrated on the latter role and new drummer Gabriel Coan introduced ideas and aesthetics from his experience with experimental electronics.

The song “Grey Holiday” plays it pretty straight with 1960s soft-haze sounds. But the next song, “Aether Tide” pushes it with a glorious arrangement that could be a psychedelicized version of current folk-pop stars the Lumineers. And if the somber mid-album medley “Traveling West/Sundowns” seems an inevitable, almost obligatory Brian Wilson nod, the sunny-skies closer “Yonder” transcends its inspirations. With an extended instrumental coda, in come synthetic strings and a rhythmic looseness recalling, a little, the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever” by that group, oh, what were they called? But it’s about creativity, not copying.

Heroic? Not really. But on “Sun Moon” the Orange Peels make music both tart and colorful enough to match the band’s name -- and to fulfill the true spirit of power-pop, not just the sound. - The California Report


Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

Photos

Bio

Even as the whiplash, bruises, and body aches began to fade, it was like they could feel their old lives beginning to disappear.

Flash back to late November, 2013. On the way to the last show of their Sun Moon tour, founding Orange Peels members Allen Clapp and Jill Pries were in a life-changing accident. Stopped in traffic on Highway 880, Allen had just asked Jill for a piece of gum when they were hit from behind at 60 mph by a drunk driver.

Somehow, the two walked away, were given the OK by the EMTs, and even went on to play the show (their van wasn't so lucky). But they weren't the same. 

What followed was a year of massive change, beginning with a 5-day recording session at the band's 15-year headquarters — a midcentury modern Eichler home in the heart of Silicon Valley called Mystery Lawn Studio. In that session, new song ideas spilled out of the band faster than they could complete them.

By the next month though, that house would be on the market, and the two would leave their home and studio to retreat to the Santa Cruz Mountains. "It wasn't your typical exit strategy," Clapp says,"It was more like being beat up and kicked into an alternate universe."

Trading the sleek Sunnyvale abode for a late 1970s hexagonal mountain house in Boulder Creek, CA turned out to be the perfect recipe for recovery. There among the redwoods, the band reconvened on the 2-acre compound — rechristened Mystery Lawn Mountain — to flesh out the tunes, write a couple new ones, and mix the results.

New inspiration wasn't hard to find. Many of the songs loosely chronicle the band's journey over the course of a tumultuous year, so it's not surprising that themes of loss, discovery, and change dominate the lyrics. Shadows of the experience lurk on the back-to-back tracks "Fleeing the Scene" and "New Moon," while a more anthemic telling of the tale is condensed into the verses of "9" — a song about the mountain highway that snakes past the band's new headquarters.

Maybe it was the shock of the accident that gave lead guitarist John Moremen and drummer Gabriel Coan the opportunity to carry the band forward in new ways. The collection showcases Moremen's on-the-spot song arrangement chops and marks Coan's first appearance as co-producer on a Peels record. It's also the first time the band has released a new record in less than 4 years.

Still, some things remain unchanged. The band's keen attention to mood and melody is thankfully and marvelously intact. So is the collaborative spirit that launched their 2013 album, Sun Moon. "Begin the Begone" finds the band taking new risks, saying to hell with the consequences, and making the most immediate and adventurous music of its career.

Band Members