Peter Kernel - The Size of the Night (2018)

Formed in 2008, Peter Kernel is a duo that consists of Canadian singer and film maker Barbara Lehnhoff and Swiss graphic designer Aris Bassetti. They describe themselves as experimental post punk and to get their music out to the hordes they formed their own music label On the Camper Records. They have toured with Canadian indie band Wolf Parade and this is their fourth album, the others being the debut How To Perform A Funeral, White Death And Black Heart released in 2011 in collaboration with French label Africantape, which received such a fantastic response in France. It catapulted them straight into the European music scene, and the 2011 Thrill Addict complete with a sell out release show in Paris. The album sold out so quickly that within a few months of its release it was being reprinted. They have toured all over including the Montreaux Jazz festival, HMV Forum in the UK, and Soundlabs festival in Italy to name just a few.

In 2017 they started up an orchestral version of the band calling themselves Peter Kernel and the Wicked Orchestra, adding even more instuments to their already exhaustive accoutrements.

The album stright off the bat has a Japanese Kabuki style background vibe to it, with a mix of gongs, shifting time signatures, a cacophony of strings and what sounds like a chanter. You name it it’s all there, and the sound? it’s different, they are definitely an experimental pair mixing the likes of the Cure, Sonic Youth and with the often screeching vocals of Lehnhoff. They are very difficult to label..what the hell!! Here’s my description: Classical, Psychedelic, Post punk, techno, celtic, primal indie pop. Phew. ………I said they were different .

Myself I think this album is for fans only; to me there’s just too many things going on, but how do you become fans? You listen to their music, you never know this crazy pair mght just ignite something in you.