Street Peach

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


 

Street Peach’s Fearless Authenticity Shines On Debut EP Monarch

New Single “34” Due Out September 20th!

 

Austin, TX – Austin native, musician and songwriter Street Peach aka Lani Thomison, has created an opus of self-reflection and celebration with her newest project. She pulls from a collection of songs written during the pandemic to create a fusion of Alt R&B, trip-hop, pop, and folk for her debut EP Monarch, due out October 25th. Pre-save new album here.

Today Street Peach announces the last single released ahead of the EP, “34” due out September 20th. Backed by lo-fi beats and rich ethereal harmonies, “34” captures the essence of finding peace with oneself amidst the passage of time. Street Peach comments, “34 was the age I wrote the song, and it’s very much a song about that age.” She says, “It is a love letter to myself, written at a point in life when I started to fully embrace the journey, you’re getting older, you’re not as young as you were, but that’s ok, it’s great even. It’s about finally getting to a place where you love yourself no matter what. The gray hairs, the mistakes, and you’re still here loving and keeping your heart open despite the nicks and scars. Like it’s a little war-torn but it’s still beating!”  Pre-save “34” here.

Most known for her work as the co-founder of the Austin powerhouse trio Keeper, Monarch marks Street Peach’s solo debut. Although it has taken time to get here and a global pandemic, Street Peach is reclaiming her distinct and powerful voice within the Austin music scene. With the new EP she comes full circle she explains, “I hadn’t written in a long time. I had gotten busy with work and just kind of given up on music, or shelved it so to speak not really knowing what my process would be like. When lockdown happened, I finally had the free time and all of a sudden songs were pouring out of me.“

She recalls, “The whole process kind of felt like a dream to me. I surprised myself how easy I found it to write music again, how much  I enjoyed the process, it’s always been my first way to process my feelings and intuition- which sometimes can be ahead of my awareness. I don’t know, it was my saving grace during lockdown, to be able to work on it. I suppose, and in a different way, music saves once again!” 

The EP reflects her inspiration from a wide range of sources, including choral music to poetry, from the intersection of nature and human connection to scientific inquiry. A firm believer that curiosity is key, Street Peach finds inspiration in everything around.

On Monarch, Street Peach dives deep into uncharted territory, embracing the beauty and wisdom that comes with age. Street Peach says of the title, “It’s kind of a nod to different life experiences, and migrating through them. It’s about hope, growth, reclamation of power, falling in love, falling out of it, while holding onto myself. It’s about finding yourself in a place of deep love and gratitude for yourself.” She explains, “Which is why Monarch felt so fitting. The way they migrate through life, they’re regarded as having the most highly evolved migration pattern of any known insect.”

Monarch marks a new chapter for Street Peach, blending vulnerability with the confidence of an artist in full bloom. With the help of the critically acclaimed producer Willie Green (Wiz Khalifa, Donnie McClurkin, The Roots, Fielded) she was able to bring her vision to life. From a cold DM with few vocal stems a partnership blossomed between the two. Green adds, “This project was a big part of my sanity during lockdown. When the world is moving like normal, I don’t always have to time to just dive into something I’m just really passionate about. But when the world slowed down I had more time on my hands than I was used to and really wanted to create something. But I needed direction and Lani was kind of a muse in that way.” 

“Breath and Exposure” was the first song Green worked on, it was “Inspired by this breathwork class I took with my friend Kimmy Moss, and I wrote it about myself and my friends. When you strip it all down,  slow it all down,  love, community and authenticity are what really matter,” states Street Peach. When she got the song back she immediately knew it was the sound she wanted recalling, “I remember sitting on my kitchen floor listening to it, just kind of in awe. We just kept working on songs from there. I felt like every time he sent back a draft, it was exactly what I wanted the production to sound like. It’s so rare that someone gets you like that and has a similar taste. Also, at the time, just getting back into it, and living alone during lockdown, it meant the world to have someone to collaborate with and just be a touch point for sanity.”

Green says, “These acapella demos would come in and I would just see where they took me.” He continues, “I wanted to focus mostly on textural sounds, since Lani has such a strong sense of melody and harmony.  When we were working remotely, I was writing to melodies she had already written, which is a very different way of working for me. I usually make tracks and send them out, but it was nice to experiment in a different workflow, following someone else’s lead.”

Leveraging the free time presented, Street Peach focused in on her writing process. She dove into the unexpected, she explains, “My previous releases were written with others, this one was all me. In that case, it feels immensely more vulnerable and, scary. You’re holding your heart in your hands, saying, here is my soul, do you see it? Do you feel it? Does it resonate?” 

Although most of the new music was recorded in her living room in Austin, she did travel to NY to record at Greenhouse Recording Studio with Willie Green, “I went up there in the fall of 2021 and we spent two days writing and recording. We had actually never met in person before that, but it felt like we had. I recorded “Numb”, and “34” I wrote on the spot in one take, which I feel is a testament to how comfortable I was with him.”

Over the past year, Street Peach has been rolling out singles from the new EP, including the stunning single, “Caroline.” The song debuted with KUTX and is about love and the serendipitous timing when love goes your way, for once. It was followed by the song “Heavy,” hailed by KUTX as,  seduction on thick, thanks to delineated drums, drizzling synths, and a Sylvia Striplin-style chord progression channeled through a killer chorus guitar groove – one that makes the bed for Street Peach’s featherlight vocals.” 

“Overflow” kicked off the summer with its raw and emotional lyrics that explore how it feels to process betrayal. And recently, “New Moon In Leo” debuted on Nabihah Iqbal’s BBC6 show, “Lose Yourself with…”Street Peach comments, “If it comes, let it. If it goes, let it. It’s about not letting anyone steal your power, not waiting for the timing to be right with someone. Not allowing yourself to be an option.”

As she prepares to release Monarch, Street Peach reflects on what the EP means to her: “This release feels like coming back to myself. Music has always been my way of understanding the world, and with Monarch, I’m sharing that journey with others. I hope it touches those who are in their own process of transformation and healing.”

“If we’ve learned one thing from Destiny’s Child, it’s that vocal groups aren’t always limited to one breakout singer. Even if fate favors one over another in the long run. And that’s kind of lining up with how we see some of the expats from former Austin R&B trio Keeper.” – KUTX

Monarch Tracklisting

• Breath & Exposure

• Caroline

• Heavy

• Numb

• Overflow

• New Moon in Leo

• 34

 

Connect with Street Peach

Website | IG | YouTube | Soundcloud

 

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