“Peppercorn Boy”, the newest track from Liverpool’s TV ME, is a slice of bouncy psych-pop magic. Its music video, starring spinning vinyl on various homemade contraptions, is nifty as well. The project – comprised of frontman Thomas McConnell alongside Frankie Tibbles and Adam Dixon – certainly likes to have idiosyncratic fun. Per their press release, the band “are said to spend their time offstage together ‘painting cassettes, listening to music that helps plants grow and kidnapping percussionists’. As if the mechanics of music wasn’t enough to master, McConnell also demonstrates an impressive aptitude for engineering, taking retro-toys, records, CDs and cassettes to create a rhythmical robot to ‘dance’ in the single’s hypnotic video, an intentional comment on the demise and rise of the physical music format.”
As for the track itself, “Peppercorn Boy” initially rides on an acoustic shuffle and ’80s-friendly synth lead, with sonorous vocals helping lead into a chorus where multi-layered vocals work nicely alongside a more funk-friendly rhythmic backbone. There’s bits of surf-pop in the vocal delivery here, with the instrumentation reflecting early synth-pop infatuation a la Kraftwerk. It’s an eclectic, stimulating success that shows TV ME are very capable songwriters, with fun music video ideas to boot.
