Perhapsy

Perhapsy is the solo project of musician/graphic-artist Derek Barber, guitarist and songwriter of Bay Area-based groups Curls (Christopher Owens of Girls), Bells Atlas, and previous contributor to Astronauts, etc. and Madeline Kenney.

Although he's lived in California for several years, Perhapsy's Derek Barber is a midwesterner at heart. Beneath the layered, post-rock guitar textures and driving drum beats on The, Perhapsy's latest EP, lays a sweetness and sincerity that belies Barber's Mansfield, Ohio origins. The music on this EP is nostalgic, not in the regressive, unimaginative sense of cultural nostalgia — plundering the stylistic tendencies of the past — but in the more personal sense: a genuine, aching looking back into one’s own past experiences and emotions. This nostalgia, derived from the lyrics and Barber's soft vocals, lays under a bed of shimmering guitars.

Aside from his work as the frontman for Perhapsy, Barber is rightfully acclaimed for his guitar playing with Madeline Kenney, Bells Atlas, and Astronauts, etc. As such, the guitars on The are the EP's most distinctive feature. They chime on the spirited “Baptism '89”; rise and fall over a pulsing bed of bass and drum machine claps on the lush, foggy “Forward/Back”; pierce through the haze of “Where Is Your Home?”; ring on “O, Su Yung”, a driving, post-punk ghost story; and swell and roar on the cover of Grouper's “Heavy Water (I'd Rather Be Sleeping)”. The lyrics on the chorus of this last tune sum up the overall affect of the EP: “Oh dreams I'm moving through heavy water / The love is enormous / It's lifting me up / I'd rather be sleeping / I'd rather fall into tidal waves / Right where the deepest currents flow.” In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud writes of the “oceanic feeling”: a primitive sensation of oneness with the universe. With its midwestern sweetness and its varied, fuzzy guitar textures, The evokes this same feeling.

- Chris Alarie

Active since his college years as a Jazz Studies major at the University of Michigan, Perhapsy has been the main creative outlet for Barber besides playing in various other bands (Astronauts, etc., In Watermelon Sugar, Chyristian Rawk, Anna Ash, and The Winston Jazz Routine to name a few).

What once began as an instrumental rock outfit (self-titled album released by KC-based The Record Machine, 2010) has translated into an experimental pop singer-songwriter project characterized by trance-like guitar loops, live sonic improvisation, and understated vocals.

While continually contributing to Curls, Astronauts, etc. and Bells Atlas, Barber released his sophomore album Me Tie Dough-ty Walker in March 2016 and released a follow-up EP entitled THE in March 2017.

Barber is currently finishing his third full length album to be released in 2018.

https://perhapsy.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/perhapsymusic/
https://www.facebook.com/perhapsymusic
http://soundcloud.com/perhapsy