New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Washington, D.C.-based band Bottled Up is pleased to share their new single "Pripiyalab." Hot off their acclaimmed sophomore full-length album, Grand Bizarre, Bottled Up's first single of 2023 "Pripiyalab" is a velvety mantra about harnessing the power of paranoia.
The band showcases their irreverence for genre, combining Japanese shamisen samples and jazzy pianos, with a driving yet evolving rhythm section reminiscent of the avant-pop of Stereolab or Broadcast. This new oddity, "Pripyalab," ripples with pulsing synths and a haunting arrangement. The track tackles the threat of looming exploitation, and offers a choice for finding a life beside it.
"Pripiyalab" debuted today at The Week In Pop and will be on all streaming platforms on Friday.
On the song Bottled Up's frontman Nikhil Rao says: I wrote Pripiyalab when I was on vacation in Italy this past Summer. I was experimenting with warping Japanese Shamisen samples into pulsing grooves and strange chord progressions, trying to capture my feelings of dissociation in what was supposed to be a beautiful vacation.
Between visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and hiking the trails of Cinque Terre realized quickly that I was not enjoying myself. From huge engraved churches to hidden cathedrals, I felt assaulted by the imagery of wrinkled old white men propped up as angels and deities. The real gods in my mind were the artists who carved and painted these beautiful works of art, creating masterpieces under commission from the church as teenagers. It was a revelation to realize that this social stratum in the arts has survived centuries, hiding in plain sight all around us.
Pripiyalab is sort of a prayer, a mantra to myself that I can stand tall above this history with grace and confidence.
I've been reworking my whole songwriting process the past year, as I've been enjoying a lot of the esoteric electronic and left-field pop artists of Pan Records.
There's a lot of adventurous cultural fusion happening with a lot of their artists, and it's inspired me to delve deeper into combining the sampling of world music instruments with krautrock & western pop music in my own ways. It feels more personal and intimate, maybe for spiritual reasons or my Indian heritage. Either way I'm excited to push these techniques as far as they can go!
On Grand
Bizarre Bottled Up's release on Misra Records, the band investigates punk for strange yet anthemic features. Their songs search for meaning in a world that's coming undone. From ecological disaster to the supernatural mind games of love, frontman Nikhil Rao treats the daily act of "subconsciously submitting and surrendering to death" as a hopeful reminder to remain open.
As remarked in publication, the experimental pop-rock group guides listeners through a diverse marketplace (bazaar) of musical influences. Few bands can sincerely say they are equally influenced by kitschy proto-punk of DEVO and the hyper-modern pop electronics of PC
Music producers A.G. Cook and SOPHIE. Bottled Up are one of those few artists.
Post-Grand Bizarre, Bottled Up now dives further into their uncharted territory, combining elements of hip-hop sampling, Elliot Smith-esque open guitar tunings, house & techno drum/synth sequencing, with their evolving brand of experimental dense pop and underground rock.
Indian-American by way of Washington, DC & Oakland, CA, Rao is a sound designer and audio engineer by trade - professionally schooled in the art of film & video game scoring- informed first by the sort of his journeying one's got to do when faced with the darknesses of addiction and a twisty adolescence in and out of religious cults.
Joined by Michael Mastrangelo on guitar, Tommy Sherrod on bass, Clo on synths/vocals, and Rao's wunderkid brother, Rohit, on acid-jazz-does-punk drums, Bottled Up conjures the sort of psycho-potpurri-spirit that's only given to the sort of band that's able to conjure a vision of the things they love, and the mountains they've overcome.
Bottled Up completed three national tours in 2022, including shows with Spaceface (Jake Ingalls of The Flaming Lips) and sold out their 500 vinyl pressing run of Grand Bizarre. The band was featured in Brooklyn Vegan, Flood Magazine, Washington Post, NPR, and more.
