Bubblegum Boogie, by Keiron Phelan and Peace Signs

Bubblegum Boogie

by Keiron Phelan and Peace Signs

supported by

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£10 GBP or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Limited edtition CD in 4 panel gatefold card wallet. 100 only. Design by Catherine Whiteoak and Keiron Phelan. Artwork by Catherine Whiteoak.

Includes unlimited streaming of Bubblegum Boogie via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 10 days
edition of 100

Includes unlimited streaming of Bubblegum Boogie via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 10 days

edition of 100

£10 GBP or more

1.	Trojan Pony 03:18	buy track
2.	You've Got Your Mother's Love 03:22	buy track
3.	Song For John Howard 02:48	buy track
4.	I Hear You Calling 03:19	buy track
5.	My Last Great Love 03:27	buy track
6.	Guessing Game 02:45	buy track
7.	I Don't Know How We're Getting Home From Here 02:34	buy track
8.	I Got Ziggy On The Landline 03:48	buy track
9.	Apple Pie 02:44	buy track
10.	Bubblegum Boogie 03:14	buy track
11.	Sugar Me 03:46	buy track
12.	A Modern Day Dorothy 02:37	buy track

about

2020 found Peace Signs songwriter, Keiron Phelan, back in his childhood domicile caring for his dementia suffering mother in the final year of her life. Both her home and he, himself, now unrecognisable to her. The songs comprising Peace Signs third album, the quixotically titled Bubblegum Boogie, were composed entirely under this tightly compressed circumstance and reflect Phelan's restrictions via a quality of emotional dislocation; the value of old memories that can no longer be shared being microscopically examined. Yet the album pushes even harder to create multiple, imaginative and glamorous avenues of escape from it. Bubblegum Boogie deftly pitches and rolls between sincere emotional dips and highs.

Into the former vein falls a tear of elegant baroque pop; the child-turned-parent, Clifford T Ward toned, sad reflections of 'I Don't Know How We're Going Home From Here', the Jimmy Campbell country-style, unhappy families lament of 'You've Got Your Mother's Love' and the absent friends + closed clubs + solitary nights and lonely afternoons of the elegiac, Cat Stevens tinged, soft-soul, title track 'Bubblegum Boogie'. The second of Phelan's Bill Fay cover versions, a loosely rolling and almost sweetly fatalistic take on 'I Hear You Calling', folds into this melancholy tone with its pensive awareness of life lived and time wasted.

On the flip of the coin, the bizarre, upbeat, earworm chant of opener 'Trojan Pony' chugs along like Tyrannosaurus Rex appearing with Coconut-era-Harry Nillsson at the Grand Ole Opry. Strutting funky camp like an off cut from Transformer (had Marc pinched the mic from Uncle Lou) is 'My Last Great Love', while soft rock anthem 'I Got Ziggy On The Landline' straddles the album's emotional mood tones, Phelan retreating into a childhood world of Raleigh Choppers, Milky Bars, adolescent tough talk and burgeoning first loves, relayed to his 'star friend' on a lime green rotary dial telephone. The gently hypnotic 'Song For John Howard' presents a Japanese ink stroke picture of a song in which the brief minutiae of new lover's meetings are trippily shaded into a paean to (Phelan's friend) the eponymous glam-ballad Godfather, piloting the album into a sense of redemptive happiness. Completing the ride are the Macca vs Mungo Jerry failure to launch relationship of 'Guessing Game', the Seals and Crofts influenced, woodwind hook laden, romantic ghost story; 'Apple Pie' and an ecstatic, gender-inverted, take on Lynsey de Pauls' 'Sugar Me'. Denouement, the Neil Hannonesque archness of ballad/rocker 'A Modern Day Dorothy' laments both lost innocence and provides a simultaneously sweet yet menacing rally call of defiance against harsh times.

Keiron Phelan (Vocals, Acc guit, flute) is joined by Peace Signs mainstays Jenny Brand (Piano, clarinet, backing vocals), Jack Hayter (Pedal steel), Giles Barrett (Bass), Ian Button (Drums, percussion) and James Stringer (Organ, recorder sections).

credits

released September 23, 2022

All songs by Keiron Phelan except 'I Hear You Calling' (Bill Fay) and 'Sugar Me' (Lynsey de Paul Arranged by Peace Signs (Keiron Phelan, Jenny Brand, Jack Hayter, James Stringer, Giles Barrett, Ian Button).

Release by Gare du Nord records.

license

about

Keiron Phelan London, UK

Keiron Phelan is a multi-instrumentalist and alternative pop singer-songwriter from London.

'A brightly lit soundworld, capricious magic and some subtly warped reality.'
MOJO

"Makes me feel better about being English"
Lauren Laverne BBC6 Music ('Jerusalem' arr. Keiron Phelan) ... more

Instagram

contact / help

Contact Keiron Phelan

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Bubblegum Boogie, you may also like:

Lido
by Darren Hayman

supported by 4 fans who also own “Bubblegum Boogie”

This is dreamy. Possibly one of Darren Hayman's best (which is saying something). Jamie (Audio Antihero)
go to album
Powders
by Eartheater

An album about the process of breaking things down that sounds like it comes from another planet. Bandcamp Album of the Day Sep 18, 2023
go to album
Everyone's Crushed
by Water From Your Eyes

The New York duo crush it (and everyone) on their first full-length for Matador Records, an experimental pop opus that sounds truly new. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 9, 2023
go to album
Junk in Orbit EP
by Ade

Giddy and rambunctious, these three songs sound like the soundtrack to the world’s most hyperactive 8-bit game. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 27, 2022
go to album
Glassplanet
by Glassmanet

Gorgeous psych pop as big and sprawling as a clear summer sky, with vocal melodies that swoop and dive. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 13, 2022
go to album
The Electrical Sea
by Closed Circuits

These quietly gorgeous songs beautifully blend aqueous electronic sounds with heart-on-sleeve vocals to stirring effect. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 15, 2022
go to album
Friends of the Future
by Lena Douglas

featured on Bandcamp Radio Jun 7, 2022
go to album