Stream: Gothic Tropic, ‘Puppet Master’

Kevin Bronson on June 19th, 2015

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For years, Cecilia Della Peruti has been a familiar figure on the L.A. indie scene, but not necessarily because she wants to fit in. Since 2011 or so, her band Gothic Tropic has gigged and gigged and gigged and gigged some more, prompting a lot of next-big-thing chatter but offering little in the way of actual releases to back it. (2011’s “Awesome Problems” is now officially an oldie.) Finally, Gothic Tropic this week announced that their debut album would be out next year, and with it teased with the single “Puppet Master,” which is Exhibit A in the notion that Gothic Tropic does not fit in. The music made by the trio — Della Peruti, Daniel Denton and Rheese Detrow — doesn’t slide into any of the niche-y garage-, retro- or psych-rock that has everybody in a tizzy (and currently residing on that melting cassette in your car). Gothic Tropic’s dark take on indie-rock is irascible, incorporating arresting rhythms and guitar breakdowns, with the songs’ pretty parts — like the band’s actual output — playing hard to get. In that way, “Puppet Master” is almost satire, a pop-punk song not-so-lovingly mangled. For her part, Della Peruti elucidates on Flavorwire, where the song premiered. Meanwhile, the album “FASTorFEAST,” which she promises will be “funky, edgy, and sexy,” will be out in early 2016 on Old Flame Records.

||| Stream: “Puppet Master”