The past few years have been a time of expansion for Philly’s Pine Barons. Active on the scene since the early 20-teens, alums of the XPoNential Music Festival, tenured road dogs on numerous tours with their peers The Districts, the band found itself in an era of creative rebirth and exploration during the pandemic lockdown.
Pine Barons’ third album, Mirage on the Meadow, landed in the thick of 2020 — it was a big step forward in the realm of their finely-honed take on guitar-driven indie rock, but it was years before the band was able to support it onstage. Like indie musicians the world around, they spent the lockdown era in their home studios and practice rooms, writing and recording, listening and discovering.
This period of incubation led to I LOVE FISH, an unexpected and immersive album-length tribute to the 90s Tokyo psychedelic band Fishmans, a band Pine Barons first heard while making Mirage and went all in on with the newfound time on their hands. (Read more about the making of that album in our interview with the band from the time.) The impact and influence of that project can be heard in the run of new songs the band has released since: with supple sunburst synth, dreamlike sounds and textures, and audio collage structures propping up Pine Barons’ ever-present pop sensibilities, the level of growth is dazzling, and we hear it on full display in the band’s return to the Key Studio Sessions.
Comprised of singer-guitarists Keith Abrams and Brad Pulley, keyboardist Alexander Beebe, bassist James Tierney, and drummer Alex Held, Pine Barons take us on a journey through three of the new singles they’ve released over the past year — “Frantic Francis,” “Electric Fingertips,” “Blue Dolphin” — with a revisit of the atmospheric “Night Cruising” from I LOVE FISH closing the set out. Watch the full performance recorded at WXPN studios below, and experience the band’s transportive live energy in person later this month. Pine Barons’ next hometown show happens on Saturday, March 30th at World Cafe Live, where they’ll support Clap Your Hands Say Yeah; tickets and more information can be found at WXPN’s Concert Calendar. To keep up on their further adventures, give them a follow at @pinebarons.