Peeesseye was formed in 2002 in Brooklyn NY by Chris Forsyth (guitar), Jaime Fennelly (harmonium & electronics), and Fritz Welch (percussion, vocals). Over a 10 year period they released a series of LPs, CDs, and tapes which displayed a restless evolution from quiet & static improv to acoustic noise and facemelting non-rock. Since the group’s demise and the band-members’ gradual evacuation of Brooklyn, they’ve remained individually active. Forsyth has relocated to Philadelphia and released a series of lauded guitar-centric records under his own name; Fennelly lived in a remote island in the Pacific Northwest for a few years and has re-emerged with the deep drone project Mind Over Mirrors; and Welch has formed various groups in the UK and Europe including the crypto conceptual anti-band Asparagus Piss Raindrop.
“In a desperate effort to capture the final episode of Peeesseye, someone jacked a microphone into a cassette deck and pressed record. With a Wrecking Crew wink, SCI-FI DEATH MASK was created. It was the crowning.. and the killing.. of PEEESSEYE. No mucking about, this was pre-ordained. The natural conclusion.
PSI/pee-ess-eye/The Peeesseye – Chris Forsyth, Jaime Fennelly and Fritz Welch – has been decalcifying the pineal gland and throttling parameters for over a decade to craft shifting nimbus tensions – and deliverances – the sonic experience of lone naked swimming over the Mariana Trench. A Ranter’s harmonium, tattered flag guitar, arrhythmia sleep percussion, meff soul crooning and electrical overload are arranged on a sixpence with a nefarious Brotherhood’s collusion: the beauty is found overcoming the obstacles, not by roaming endless hypermarkets – letting go of not only formal technique, but just.. letting.. go – becoming a Radical Zen conduit; channeling a language that teeters between elegy and barbarism, the magical and corporeal. Soul and gut.
The sad reality of right now is that SCI-FI DEATH MASK reached such a level of enquiry – or hallucinatory divination – it broke PEEESSEYE forever. ‘What Is The Value, What Is The Purpose?’ is the album’s swan song. It transcends from crumbling blocks of sound debris into a beautiful orphaned force. From within the Cosmic Quaker Meeting House, the irrevocable tide of decay is contemplatively beatified!
It’s a miracle this album even exists. Who are we going to turn to now for audio-cosmi-anarcho-politico-necromancy? I’ll miss you PEEESSEYE.”
Richy Midnight, 2014
