Multi-instrumentalist Peter W. Bartash turns decades of memory and self-examination into a cinematic collision of alternative rock, post-hardcore and shoegaze on the first taste of PPR PPL // 01.
Boston musician Peter W. Bartash has spent decades behind the drum kit, but his new project PPR PPL, pronounced “Paper People,” brings him decisively to the foreground. Debut single “Taller Trees” introduces that transformation with a towering piece of alternative rock that moves between atmospheric restraint and explosive heaviness.
Operating under the P. Willem moniker, Bartash is known in the New England scene as drummer for psych-rock outfit The Rupert Selection and as a session musician. PPR PPL instead gives him a vehicle for his own experiences, folding post-hardcore, shoegaze and alternative metal into an intensely personal exploration of identity and the distance between who we are and who the world expects us to be.
The origins of “Taller Trees” stretch back to a visit to Bartash’s childhood home, where he discovered that trees he had planted with his father as a child had grown more than 30 feet tall. Years later, while traveling on a remote island in eastern Canada, a guitar riff brought that memory rushing back. The resulting song connects childhood, physical adversity, music and adulthood into an anthem about realizing that the story of a life can keep unfolding long after its earliest seeds are planted.
Bartash wrote, produced, programmed and arranged “Taller Trees,” performing vocals, drums, programming and keyboards. Brian Charles co-produced the track and contributed guitars, with Annie Hoffman on bass. Recorded at Rare Signals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the project was mastered by Joe Bozzi at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
“Taller Trees” leads into the six-track PPR PPL // 01, arriving November 17, with second single “Ache (Hiraeth)” scheduled for October 2.
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