Pet Shimmers are the Bristol collective who released their debut album Face Down in Meta at the start of the year – an album that we picked as one of our favourites from the early part of 2020. They haven’t wasted this catastrophe of a year by remaining inactive though, instead creating a whole new album: it’s called Trash Earthers and will come out through their own PS Records on October 2.
The first song shared from the new album is called “Imber”, with Pet Shimmers vocalist Oliver Wilde saying: “How much proof do you need before you act on something? ‘How much injustice will it take to activate people’s actions? Imber is a place, but I may have got the place wrong – where I used to live there used to be an abandoned park called Imber, which I think is now a military training ground. We used to break in and run around, but I guess that’s now irrelevant.”
Wilde’s quote introduces the dreamy drift through memories and eternal questions that populate “Imber”. Pet Shimmers bring plenty of tactile instrumentation and synth patches to the track, but with a loping bassline underneath and a sky-searching melody, the track is uplifting despite the uncertainty that lives in its bones. A true sound of a collective, “Imber” finds the group shifting gears in unison, combining to become a mechanism for creating empathy, and finding a beautiful conclusion in the song’s horn-imbued finale.
Pet Shimmers’ new album Trash Earthers is out October 2 on PS Records. You can find them on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
If you’re in the UK you can catch them next year on these dates:
Monday 1st March – The Bullingdon, Oxford, >
Tuesday 9th March – Joiners, Southampton*
Thursday 11th March – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton*
Friday 12th March – Elsewhere, Margate*
Saturday 13th March – Jericho Tavern, Oxford*
Sunday 21st March – Exchange, Bristol*
Wednesday 21st April – Scala, London*
> = w. Porridge Radio
* = w. Happyness
