Article Views: 97
Renowned for his unmistakable voice and wry lyrical touch, Pete Fij(alkowski) makes a welcome return with fresh solo material, unveiling songs that brim with melody, wit and understated charm.
Pete has just released his brand new single “Cuckoo” along with its accompanying music video.
Discussing the video, Pete states:
“One of my favourite films of recent times is David Leitch’s 2017 spy thriller Atomic Blonde with Charlize Theron kicking traitors’ butts in late ’80s neon-lit Berlin. ‘Cuckoo’ is my take on the spirit of that film, with Siousxie Sioux driving the getaway car as Phil Oakey from The Human League takes aim through a nighttime telescopic viewfinder. The lyrics are made up predominantly of espionage terms, though as the song progresses, they get mixed up to create their own code.”
Pete first burst onto the scene in the early ’90s as the frontman and guitarist of post-shoegaze/pre-Britpop band Adorable, whose 1993 album Against Perfection, released on Creation Records, is regularly referred to as a lost indie classic, with the band picking up multiple “Single of the Week” awards in the NME and topping the Indie charts. Noel Gallagher once told Creation Records’ Alan McGee that dropping Adorable from the label was one of his biggest mistakes, whilst other artists such as Ash, Slowdive and Brian Jonestown Massacre, amongst others, have all expressed their admiration for the band.
Following this, he joined up with his brother Krzys to form One Little Indian band Polak (Swansongs 2000/Rubbernecking 2002), which took in influences from the likes of Sparklehorse, Radiohead and dEUS, and led The Independent to call him “the most gifted lyricist since Jarvis Cocker last put pen to paper.”
There then followed a musical exile, after having what Pete now describes as ‘a musical breakdown’ before re-emerging alongside celebrated House of Love guitarist Terry Bickers to release two critically acclaimed albums as Pete Fij / Terry Bickers on 2014’s Broken Heart Surgery, and 2017’s We Are Millionaires, winning the Roundtable ‘Single of The Week’ on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6Music show – “Beautiful” (MOJO) “Unfailingly lovely” (UNCUT) “Stunning” (OHM) “Beautifully constructed” (Q).
Adorable then reformed for a few weeks in 2019 for a series of one-off dates that sold out in record time, playing bigger venues than they did in their heyday, and then broke up again.
After another musical hiatus, he’s back:
“After years of singing downbeat songs of melancholy and loss, after waving goodbye to a long-term relationship, after working at a care home during the COVID pandemic, after seeing people off from the platform of life as a Funeral Celebrant, I decided to have a reset.”
Slinging back on the electric guitar, ditching the job, upping the BPMs, and falling in love again has resulted in Pete embracing his fuzzed-up dream-pop past but also throwing in elements of pop and electronica.
Now signed to Tip Top Recordings, the working title of his forthcoming LP is appropriately enough Up’s The New Down (to be released in 2026).
Pete’s lush and rich baritone voice has been compared to Lee Hazlewood, Lou Reed and Richard Hawley in the past – and fans will be pleased to hear that, if anything, it’s sounding stronger, more urgent and characterful than ever.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source v13.net ’
