Dave Pen is a UK south coast-based vocalist and guitarist who is also one half of BirdPen and co-frontman with the experimental trip-rock collective Archive, who have built a huge continental fanbase across three decades of activity that has seen them sell out arena shows and achieve Top 10 chart success in multiple territories. He has also made two albums as We Are Bodies with the composer Robin Foster.
‘Life Life Life Life Life Life Life Life’ is the second single to be issued from an upcoming solo album by Pen entitled ‘Life Inside The Feeder Mind’. Out on 10th October, it comes four years after ‘Abran Wish & The Light Party’, a conceptual record that marked his solo debut.
“This is a song about feeling trapped, taken from the viewpoint of several different people,” explains Pen. “It’s about trying to face who and what you are, but with a sense of being stuck inside, without escape, checking your phone for the latest trends, drinking, or trying to escape from an abusive relationship. I wrote it during the pandemic, a period when a lot of people realised they weren’t happy, so in a way this song is about that. It’s life life life life….no matter what we try and do.”
The new single follows the bleak and claustrophobic ‘No Hiding’, which was released in early July STREAM | BANDCAMP | VISUALISER.
Traversing alternative and progressive rock, atmospheric and epic post-punk, subtle psychedelia and electronica, ‘Life Inside The Feeder Mind’ comes across as a broodingly intense yet spatial sounding progression from his solo debut. Pen notes that “these new songs come from a dark and often confused state of mind. Our world is one of continued reminders of growing uncertainty, so I used the writing of them as some sort of sonic therapy. After all, aren’t all our brains in constant feed mode, with our mouths wide open to be drip-fed fear and worry, with just an occasional morsel of hope?”
‘Life Inside The Feeder Mind’ was written, recorded and produced at Pen’s home studio in Southampton and mastered in Stockholm, Sweden. The album will be released on limited edition coloured vinyl and as a digital download.
