pink skull

Over the years, Pink Skull has wandered across the sonic landscape, a changing cast of characters and mediums, in just as many different veins. The band began around 2004 whilst working on the first mix cd for RVNG INT’L and hasn’t slowed down since. Julian Grefe and Justin Geller struck up a great working relationship on that project and remain the core creative force in the band. The first EP release, Blast Yr AKK, was a techy, minimalist psych soup engineered mostly on Julian Grefe’s ... [ more ] Over the years, Pink Skull has wandered across the sonic landscape, a changing cast of characters and mediums, in just as many different veins. The band began around 2004 whilst working on the first mix cd for RVNG INT’L and hasn’t slowed down since. Julian Grefe and Justin Geller struck up a great working relationship on that project and remain the core creative force in the band. The first EP release, Blast Yr AKK, was a techy, minimalist psych soup engineered mostly on Julian Grefe’s SP1200. The following release, Zeppelin III, on Free News Projects was a proper full length LP with guest appearances by artists as varied as folk singer Mirah and Wu Tang’s Ghostface Killah.

It was around this time that Pink Skull was evolving into a fully formed 5 piece live band with Grefe on percussion and vocals. The group wrote and recorded two full lengths in this vein, recording ‘”Endless Bummer” and “Psychic Welfare” for Matt Werth’s RVNG label. The erratic and esoteric ensemble shambled around the country for several years, too “dance” for the live world and too “out” for the dancefloors. During this time period, Geller and Grefe honed their remixing abilities on projects for Relish Records, Toro Y Moi, Architecture in Helsinki, Bear in Heaven among many others.

As time progressed, Geller and Grefe began to focus more intently on the studio they had been building and decided to abandon the live band format and return to the cave life of a solely electronic studio project. The duo began work on a newer, more streamlined version of Pink Skull, moving away from the kitchen sink approach to arranging and producing songs, to a stripped down, raw affair with the mighty Pink Skull modular synth, a 303, Sequential Circuits Drumtraks and the ultra rare DK Synergy at it’s heart. To call it analog would be a misnomer and this set up proved to be a fruitful decision. Around this time the two began working with Joe Lentini (Schematic) and the pairing just clicked. The three bonded over their love of spastic, heady electronica and began to turn out some mental tracks: Braindance EP(Throne of Blood), Skingame EP (Days of Being Wild), their Legitmix Ep, the Definitive Gauze EP (My Favorite Robot Records).

In 2014, they released the full length ‘Huitlacoche’ for My Favorite Robot Records, an ambient album “Turkish Delight” (as CLEAN PLATE) and with remixes for Demian, Kasper Bjørke, DC Salas, Sasse, and more. In 2015, Pink Skull went international and are now splitting their time in between Berlin and Philadelphia working on new singles and larger projects like the soundtrack for Klip Collective’s immersive experience “Nightscape” debuting this summer at Longwood Gardens. [ less ]

From

Philadelphia, PA

Labels

Free New Projects, Sugarcane Recordings, Young Robots, Mud Memory, Dischord, Lovely Chords, Polyvinyl, Tone Arm, RVNG Intl, The Savant Guard, Hometapes, Love Pump United, Relish Records, Hail Social

Members

Julian Grefe, Justin Geller

Writers

Julian Grefe, Justin Geller

Masters

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