Peer Pleasure’s ‘Rooms’ is a raw, droning track built from the wreckage of lived experience.
‘Rooms’ skeletal structure is an unrelenting riff of guitar and drums, its flesh formed from disjointed but didactic lyrics which vocalist, Brandon Murphy says were pieced together “not dissimilar to Burroughs’ cut and paste style” made up of overheard fragments of conversations in NA or AA meetings.
But this bands method to putting lyrics together isn’t the only similarity they have to Burroughs. Not only was ‘Rooms’ written in New York, it feels like the theme tune to the murky underworld of Burroughs’ imagination, where a dismantled narrative flow represents the chaotic and unpredictable lifestyle of active addiction seen in Burroughs’ works and the lyrics of ‘Rooms’. Indeed, Murphy says the song aims to ‘“portray an overall perspective on how it feels to be someone in active addiction or recovery rather than direct or specific experiences. Death by 1000 cuts as opposed to blunt force trauma”.
Both the lyrics and the feel of this song convey this message clearly. ‘Rooms’ evokes the sensation of a ride on an urban night bus through the mind of Burroughs: the rhythmic bump and bounce of wheels provides the hum of forward motion, but the spill of drunken confessions from other passengers, or in Peer Pleasure’s case, attendees in AA meetings, slumped in sleep or withdrawal, makes the destination blur.
Overall, the song captures the turbulent rhythms of addiction and recovery – the relapses and brief moments of clarity. But like Peer Pleasure’s new single, where a punky drone morphs unexpectedly into distorted frequencies of an 808 drum machine, we are reminded that even chaotic detours will eventually take us somewhere meaningful.
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