Peter The Human Boy - Stranger's Life

On his second album, Peter The Human Boy is in search of certainty over himself and the world. Between pithy drum grooves, shimmering synths, and dreamy guitars he sings about self-alienation, troubled love, and the return to his own identity.

It’s the uneasy feeling of living in someone else’s skin that has given the album its title. This feeling becomes most present in songs like “Strange Times” and “Stranger’s Life”. There’s no denying that the pandemic and isolation affected the songwriting. For one the opening track “I Miss The Music'' relates to the dreary silence of abandoned music venues and seems to be all the louder at the same time. In contrast to that are love songs like “Don’t Cry” and “Maybe Baby” which sound tender and comforting. They are like a hopeful gaze into an undefined future and a sweetly whispered “It’s going to be alright“. Also connected to love is the song “Nobody Needs To Be Lonely”, that disproves the misbelief that loneliness and isolation would make up the key to creativity.

The thematic diversity is mirrored in the playful DIY production. Alongside various rehearsal rooms and improvised studios, even a farmstead had provided the space for recording. Through instrumentation that is rich in detail, all-round musician Peter Mathis manages to paint the sonic image of a full band. Motown-like drum grooves, crude delay pedals, and the use of an analog tape machine grant the album its distinctive vintage charm. In combination with wide synth chords and stacked vocal harmonies “Stranger’s Life” still manages to sound like a modern record.

A key moment of the album is the song “I Feel Like Myself Again”, which puts an end to the search of “Stranger’s Life” in a pacificatory way through the recovery of one's identity.

Tracklist:

1. I Miss The Music

2. Nobody Needs To Be Lonely

3. Let’s Be Hippies

4. This Kind Of Love

5. Don’t Cry

6. Maybe Baby

7. Strange Times

8. Stranger’s Life

9. I Feel Like Myself Again

10. My Friend