On the Rise
PEAKES

From Gang of Four to Pulled Apart By Horses to Alt J, Leeds has a rich and vibrant musical heritage. But for synth-fuelled electronic trio PEAKES, it took a while to find their place in the city’s scene.

Singer Molly Puckering met synth-obsessive Maxwell Shirley in their first year studying at the Leeds College of Music. “It did have a nickname for being Leeds College of Men” laughs Puckering. “I think in my year it wasn’t as bad, but it was still probably 25% female, 75% male.”

In their second year, Puckering and Shirley moved into an eight bedroom house in the Hyde Park area of the city, renting the final room to fellow classmate Peter Redshaw. The three got on well and PEAKES was formed with Redshaw on rhythmic duties. Together they make music that feels somehow claustrophobic yet expansive. With lyrics that deal in anxiety and alienation serenely sung over rich and resounding electronic structures, theirs is a sound defined by its shifting walls.

However, once they tried to take the project out the house and play some early shows, the band were faced with difficulty finding line-ups that felt representative. “It is very male, it is very guitar-heavy, there’s a really big rock and punk scene in Leeds,” explains Puckering. “But I think over the last year or so, we’ve found a lot of other bands we love who are doing electronic music. There’s more of a scene now I think.”

Not only were PEAKES looking for a place where their electronic music could connect, they were hungry for gender parity, a shared experience of female creativity, and for line-ups that would inspire them as fans. “It just really frustrates me when there’ll be a bill and there’s just like one female in one band and that’s ticked the box. If I can play a gig with another female artist and we can both support each other, that’s just really exciting,” Puckering enthuses, and it’s a sentiment echoed by her bandmates. “They’re very easy-going, they’re great and they’re so supportive, but I think they’re bored of it being so male as well. I think that’s what we forget - as women we want there to be other women playing because we want to see ourselves represented, but men want to see us represented too. They’re bored of just going to see a line-up when it’s just five men in an indie band, supported by five men in an indie band, supported by five men...”

Despite their desire to find an electronic niche in Leeds, the group ended up recording their first EP with James Kenosha (Pulled Apart By Horses, Dinosaur Pile-Up). “Back then, I think we really wanted someone who was really good at recording drums and who also was really good at recording vocals, so that kind of ticked both boxes,” says Puckering. “He’d also worked with a few electronic artists. But looking back, he was very rock-heavy, I don’t really know what made us go down that route.”

The Space EP was released in 2017, however just two tracks remain online if you can search them out. “We removed some of it offline,” Puckering confirms. “I’m really proud of what we did, but also I sometimes find it quite painful listening to them because it’s like hearing your old work that you knew you could have done better.”

What does still exist is the video for “Space”, directed by Fiona Jane Burgess, formerly of Secretly-signed Woman’s Hour and sister to Will who co-runs the band’s label, Practice Music. “I’d seen her other work and what she’d done for Woman’s Hour and it’s so incredible, and having a female perspective as well, working with a female director, was just really exciting to me,” grins Puckering.

The video features two male dancers performing juxtaposingly violent and tender choreography against a stunning backdrop of rolling Yorkshire hills. The partnership extended to the band’s next single, “Still Life”. “It was very out of my comfort zone. I Don’t like being filmed at all! Hate it!” Laughs Puckering. “We filmed it in Fiona’s flat and the way the light came into the flat in the morning was amazing, so we filmed my scenes at 6am. I was just focussing on breakfast. If I do this right I’ll get to eat.”

For “Still Life” they switched up Yorkshire-based producers, working with Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Ghostpoet), while for their last EP, Absent in Person, they recorded in London with Steph Marziano (Denai Moore, Hayley Williams), another self-proclaimed synth nerd.

It’s on forthcoming EP Pre Invented World that the group have finally settled into a more pop-leaning collaboration with producer duo MyRiot (London Grammar, Aurora). “They’re both just incredible, I’ve never seen people work so fast and so efficiently, they’re just so skilled at what they do and they’ve been doing it for years,” smiles Puckering. “And because Roy’s got a room in RAK Studios, that was just really exciting for me and Max to go there. We just didn’t feel worthy. On the first day he greeted us at the door and we were walking up to Roy’s room and we just bumped into Dua Lipa in the corridor. It was fucking crazy. It was this really narrow corridor and we were walking and this girl just moved out the way to let us past and I was like, oh she’s nice, and then looked at her and was like OH, and just carried on walking.”

Pre Invented World, out on 5 June, is their most audacious and ambitious work to date. PEAKES have the ability to get you humming about the apocalypse. Tracks like “Careless Creation” rush out the stable with hooks as playful as the lyrics are dark and striking, while recent single “A Sacred Place” is a beautiful and understated track that, released during coronavirus lockdown, has taken on new meaning. “A lot of people messaged us like, this song is really helping me and these lyrics, I don’t know how you’ve managed it but these lyrics are so relevant, weirdly.”

It’s certainly a weird time to be releasing new music, and the dilemma of self-publicising during a global crisis is one that weighs heavy on Puckering. “There’s bigger things going on,” she nods.

However, the band do find some solace in having already booked a tour for the autumn. “So many other bands are scheduling stuff for September and we’re just like, how did we manage to pull this off?” she laughs. And until then they’ll continue to make music indoors, to share online, and grow their niche wider than a city's limit would allow.