The work of Los Angeles artist Stevhen Peters is concerned with moments and memories otherwise left for the scrap yard. Fleeting and forgotten in our performative society, Peters distills life's sweet moments into mantra-like offerings; a didactic sermon to live slowly and appreciate your surroundings. As Peters puts it, "the basic idea behind most everything is the songs center around a specific weighty memory that I have (looking at Keith Haring in New York, driving my car to meet someone, riding my bike at night in the summertime, etc.) and trying to develop the feelings I have attached to those images/memories musically, then trying to see if the songs conjure similar feelings about similar moments with people who listen to them (the idea being that my most meaningful experiences aren't unique)." The result is compiled in Peter's strongest work to date, "You Can Accommodate All You Want". Written across 2017 and 2018, amidst relocating from Portland, OR to Los Angeles, CA, this collection of songs finds Peters at his most devout and refined stage yet. Stockhausen and Steve Reich loom large in their effect on his cyclical, repetitive turn of phrases. In "Bike Ride Under Big Moon", we get pulled under the very same moon with the phrase "I will ride my bike, bike ride, bike; round and round and round, round at night," but the effect is much more generous. With Brian Wilson and Broadcast as additional touch points, YCAAYW, is quintessentially a pop record, but one that is both playful and taut. Closing the album out is the saccharine lullaby of "Light Lands on a Cool Field," where even "just for a second," we feel a surge of warmth. And with that, Peters succeeds in his goal; not of implanting memories, but calling out those which are nearly universal. Sometimes you just need to slow down to feel them.

Download hi-res press photos (by Isaac Schneider)

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RIYL: Broadcast, Panda Bear, Brian Wilson

Format: CS / DIG

Stevhen Peters is the music project of Stephen Peters. Currently based in Los Angeles, Peters work contains the threads of his prior dwellings (North Carolina, Boston, New York, Portland, OR). Environment becomes the fulcrum in which Peters teases out universal musings on introspection, self-worth, and caring for one another in breakneck times. Peters weaves 20th century minimalism with 60's indebted pop with an array of synthesizers, drum machines, and loops. Melancholic at one turn and playful the next, Peters calls out everyday experiences (phone calls, bike rides, fast cars), cans them, and places them on the table for further analysis.