Palberta share “Corner Store”/talk about their highly-anticipated LP with Nylon

By Ben Stephanus

On November 12, 2020

In News

Palberta

Share “Corner Store”

The Second Single From Their

Highly-Anticipated New LP

Talk New Album w/ Nylon

Palberta5000 out January 22nd

on Wharf Cat Records

“Before I Got Here”…sounds distinctly Palberta, though: Think the rubbery post-punk of ESG or Delta 5, updated with a healthy dose of millennial weirdness.The New York TimesPalberta are just a ball of energy…truly it feels like a band that speaks its own language, but a language that they understand…”Before I Got Here” contains everything great about Palberta.NPR’s All Songs ConsideredPalberta5000 presents the tumultuous trio reimagined, cutting through chaos to deliver smoother, more melodic bites of pristine post-punk…Palberta’s oddball perspective sharpens, crafting a clear narrative that unfolds like a series of diorama-esque vignettes.StereogumNYC trio Palberta’s special brand of popified, DIY rock gleefully runs all over the place on their latest, “Before I Got Here.”NYLON[Roach Going Down] achieves consistent conceptual acuity without losing the band’s shambling edges or tightrope daring…Palberta’s quickly honed prowess and growing mastery of their own slanted vision suggests even higher peaks to come.”Pitchfork“Really fucking good — they’ve got the existential, experimental, un-fuck-withable ethos of CAN and Yoko Ono.”FADER“Basement show Beefheart…disjointed playground punk that embraces both dissonance and innocence, trading instruments as quickly as they change ideas.”Rolling Stone“Fueled by the once in a lifetime chemistry of three longtime friends, ‘Roach Goin’ Down’ is a special, experimental take on what it means to rock.”VICE

Last month, the beloved NYC trio Palberta returned to announce the follow up to their breakout 2018 LP Roach Going Down, with their clear-eyed fifth album, Palberta5000 (out January 22nd, 2021 on Wharf Cat Records). The album was announced with a deep-dive feature on Stereogum that explored the more expansive and pop-forward style on this new release from a band long-heralded as one of the most original and idiosyncratic bands in the East Coast DIY scene. The announce was also accompanied by the release of the single “Before I Got Here,” that created a stir even by the standards of critical acclaim that have greeted the band’s earlier releases, earning comparisons to ESG and Delta 5 in The New York Times, being described as “everything great about Palberta” on NPR’s All Songs Considered, and garnering glowing coverage from spots like Pitchfork, NYLON, Paste, Consequence of Sound and BrooklynVegan among many others.

WATCH: Palberta’s “Corner Store” video

READ: Palberta’s interview with Nylon here

Today, the band are sharing a second single from their new LP, a track called “Corner Store” and speaking to NYLON about their new LP. No strangers to complex vocal arrangements, Palberta really outdo themselves on their latest track. Opening with just guitar and voices that builds to full band as the band’s three members (Nina Ryser, Ani Ivry-Block and Lily Konigsberg) continue expanding and mutating their layered harmony parts in ways both beautiful and bewildering, before eventually casting their instruments aside entirely in an extended a capella breakdown. The track is full of elements that have been common to Palberta’s songwriting for some time, but are given a new depth and power here, and a confident display of Palberta’s growing mastery over their sound. “‘Corner Store’ is a song we’ve been playing live for a while now and has gone through many transformations over time,”

Ryser explains to NYLON. “It culminated in this final version once we discovered that it needed an a capella breakdown that would slowly bring us back into the groove. Though it’s a classic Palberta move to fit in a 3-part harmony whenever we get the chance, it felt crucial. This song tells a story about strolling to the corner store, a sacred place we all know and love, on a Sunday afternoon to meet your friend and you see them on the front of the Sunday Times. And once they arrive, you do a double take and say to them, ‘hey! No way! I saw you at the corner — I saw you on the front of the Sunday Times!'”

Palberta5000 was recorded with Matt Labozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Fueled by carrots, celery, radishes, and peanut-butter-and-jelly bagels, they diligently tracked Palberta5000’s well-rehearsed songs in four days, never putting down more than three takes. Labozza’s recording and mix capture the band’s rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision.“High speed, fast track, slow prose.” Palberta5000 punctuates its jagged edges with ebullient cries of “Hey!” and rounds its corners with angelic harmonies, while marching-band snares propel the album forward with a metronomic intensity that belies the sixteen tracks’ diverse time signatures and fevered pacing. Hardcore fans will recognize the band’s live staple “Corner Store,” whose heart-melting harmonies layer over irresistible croons of “I meet you anywhere you are”—a promise kept by an album that meets listeners where they are.

“Big Bad Want,” another notable piece from the band’s pre-COVID sets, is Palberta’s version of fast punk, with a zig-zag bassline and a call-and-response nursery-rhyme chorus that returns for the song’s outro, stretching defiantly past the three-minute mark with the repeated mantra “Yeah (yeah) I can’t pretend what I want.”

Although Palberta have toyed with repetition and longer song structures on past recordings, Palberta5000 masterfully digs into a groove and transforms repeated phrases with a cult-like frenzy to hypnotic effect. On their slow waltz, “The Way That You Do,” and the enchanting “Red Antz,” Palberta bring the tempo down for lavish slow jams only hinted at on past efforts like Bye Bye Berta’s “Why Didn’t I.” Such tracks add a variation to Palberta5000’s well thought-out song cycle and contribute to a full album experience that will leave listeners breathless. In the fitful sleeper “Cow,” Palberta sing, “I will be there with my hand on your chest / I feel your rumbling internal mess.” In a time of exhausting disappointment, Palberta5000 is an album that sees our internal and external messes, openly displays its fragile places, and acts as an energetic complement to the movement for positive change.

Palberta 5000 will be released on Wharf Cat Records on January 22nd, 2021. It is available for preorder here.

About Palberta

Ani Ivory-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser met while attending Bard College and formed Palberta in 2013. My Pal Berta (2013) and Shitheads in the Ditch (2014) were both released by Feeding Tube Records. Bye Bye Berta (2016) was their first album for Wharf Cat Records and it was followed by 2018’s Roach Goin’ Down, both recorded by Paco Cathcart (The Cradle). These albums were surrounded by a slew of EPs and split releases as well as frequent touring of the United States and Canada. Palberta opened for Bikini Kill at Brooklyn Steel in 2019 and were set to tour the U.K. and Europe for the first time in April of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Their fifth album, Palberta5000, was preceded by the stand-alone single “Something in the Way” and will be released on January 22, 2021. When they can safely do so, they look forward to touring the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe.