PETE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT – Sea Of Eyes / The Lamplighters remix EP

Formed in 1997, the curiously named Pete International Airport is a musical project featuring the talents of Dandy Warhols man Peter Holmström (also of Sun Atoms, a band who released some excellent material in 2024), and Collin Hegna of Federale, a genre-hopping act who also offered one of 2024’s finest discs.

Under their Pete International Airport moniker, these musicians and other assorted friends have explored various sounds, usually veering towards influences from the 80s and 90s alternative scenes. In the last quarter of 2023, the band made a welcome comeback with their long player ‘It Felt Like The End of The World’ – the first wholly new PIA work since 2017 – which introduced new listeners to their indie/goth/rock sounds.

Among the record’s highlights, ‘Sea of Eyes’ presents deep bass grooves and deeper vocals throughout a wonderfully dark tune. In classic PIA style, that track pulls together elements of ‘Faith’ era Cure and classic Bauhaus, whilst working a simple drum loop and hard edged guitar part. The repetitive nature of the music sets an effectively hypnotic mood in place, but its the almost emotionless vocal that steals the show by casting itself back to the glory days of 80s goth with its echoing sound and effortless croon. As tracks go, it’s shamelessly retro – and all the better for it. Also representing a “classic” groove, ‘Commercial Eyez’ mixes echoing vocals and hefty beats, creating a track that marries an 80s goth tone to light industrial/heavy synth influences, sounding like an early Ministry experiment, and the lengthy ‘Brave New World’ explores a mood that sounds like The Mission on half speed, augmented by a mechanical element adding a surprisingly effective layer of melody. For those familiar with Federale, it’s a track that makes Hegna’s experimental hand rather more obvious, but repeated listens will eventually unleash a strangely affecting number that brings its retro sounds screaming into a contemporary landscape.

‘The Lamplighters’ EP offers some very interesting further listening. Its four remixes present a very different slant on the chosen source material. ‘Out Past The Razor Wire’, a once slow, brooding piece that mixed the dark sounds and dour vocals of early 80s goth with a synth tone that occasionally veered closer to a strange Vangelis experiment from 1976, has been reworked into two very different pieces by H.Y.M. The first – the ‘Post Industrial Mix’ takes the track and focuses on the basic melody. The once droning bass is now a darkwave, synth oriented pulsebeat, which works brilliantly. This is used to create an endlessly buoyant sound, under which, higher toned synths drop a siren-like noise. The vocals are lifted accordingly, and a brighter mix brings out an element in their still sad sounds. Bringing even more new elements to the table, H.Y.M. offers moments where occasional guitar cuts through as if on loan from an industrial track from the 90s, whilst even louder synths add a cold yet cinematic layer to the chorus sections. This is easily one of those times where a remix outshines its source. The busier rhythm brings more of a jubilant edge, and in doing so, actually offers something more accessible. The ‘Anti Everything Mix’ moves the source material and turns it into a dance track, with hefty beats worked throughout. The extensive use of echo and pitch adjusting of melodies is reminiscent of some of The Orb’s busier remixes from the 90s, and clacking rhythms appear to have been inspired by a section of Tangerine Dream’s ‘Thru Metamorphic Rocks’. Both elements work brilliantly; then, finally unleashing something a little more Orbital inspired, the number branches out with even bigger beats and shares an vocal which adds an extra atmospheric layer. For those still into the more alternative elements pioneered by 90s electronica, this is a must-hear.

The album cut of ‘No Blindfold’ is already drenched in reverb and loaded with echoing voices and pulsebeats, so offering a suitable remix could’ve been easy for Omniscuro. It wouldn’t have taken much to big up a few dance oriented elements and the bass. They’d clearly already thought of that, and instead of approaching the number in an obvious way, they’ve rebuilt it from the ground up. The bass is gone; the dark drones have been replaced by higher toned blankets of synth. The slow moods are now relentlessly jerky, since the rhythm track has been constructed from sharp edged mechanical loops that lean towards the glitchy. This is about sound for sound’s sake: there’s nothing here that can be approached passively or ingested as synth oriented background noise. It’s a challenging slab of electronica where the listener has no option but to listen. To emphasise this angle, the vocal – the only surviving element from the original cut – has been subjected to further trickery, now delivering the lyric as if through a vocoder. Some will find this very challenging; some will love it for all of its electro-artiness. Either way, it’s a remix that’s guaranteed to make an impression.

Far more palatable, a remix of ‘Sea of Eyes’ – helmed by GLOK, with Ride man Andy Bell – is reprised here and is rather more subtle. By removing the sharp sounding, particularly 80s beat from the original cut, the GLOK mix allows for a closer listen to a great vocal. The voice is now much higher in the mix, crooning against a few back-masked sounds and a heavy heartbeat. In its stripped down clothes, it becomes the ultimate in synth-goth tracks, and even once a very retro keyboard fills space with a few very unnatural sounds, the concession to actual melodies here is huge. With the focus moving towards the Cure-like guitar work at the mid point, this offers fans of the original track much to enjoy across a wonderfully downtempo seven minutes. [The album version is also reprised here, allowing for very close comparison and also supplying an easy way to bring those who missed the album up to speed.]

Given that the song ‘Commercial Eyez’ already sounded ripe and ready for the remix treatment, it’s strange that it isn’t represented. Maybe its mechanised edge made it too obvious a candidate… Nevertheless, there’s much to enjoy here, with the remix of ‘No Blindfold’ and the reworked ‘Sea of Eyes’ being particular standouts, but each track should offer more than enough extra curricular interest for those who’ve found a love for the parent album.

November/December 2024