Name: PLEASURES
Genre: Dark Psych, Fever Dream Pop, Sex Music for Robots, Synthparty fagcore
From: Swamplands Southwest Florida
Members: Katherine Kelly (guitar, vocals), Greg Ferris (synth), Morgan Soltes (bass, keys), Roger Lanfranchi (drums)
Mgmt: Rob Otman
Contact: web / bandcamp / soundcloud / facebook / instagram

MUSIC

VIDEO

PRESS PHOTOS (credit: Michelle Primiani)

PRESS PHOTOS (credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox)

BIOGRAPHY
Self-proclaimed “dark and doomy sex music for robots,” Florida quartet PLEASURES’ psych/doom/synth project was hatched while working on a small community farm in Northern California in the fall of 2014. The goal was to do something different from anything each had done before and to focus mainly on sound manipulation. Singer/guitarist Katherine Kelly at first wanted it to be a Black Moth Super Rainbow rip-off band. They listened to a lot of Radiohead, The Knife, Warpaint, Suuns, and Connan Mockasin. When they returned to Florida, they wrote a set of eight songs to tour with and have been actively touring since late February 2015.

In February 2016, PLEASURES released their debut full-length Fucked Up Dreams Come True, an album that explores the psychotic nature of love vs. self-control, grieving shadow selves and notions of action vs. consequence. The band toured the U.S. in support of the album for most of last year, delivering a pulse-raising live show as intriguing as it is overwhelming. Experts in sound manipulation, each band member commandeers a station of effects overflowing with cables, wires, LED screens and stomp boxes, weaving masses of aural thread into songs and interludes. Since returning home from the road in November, and after a personnel change at drums, PLEASURES have been buried in the studio and are now preparing to release the first single and music video of their follow-up effort, “Luscious Wave,” before heading out on tour again in March with their new single.

TOUR DATES
3/18/17 – St. Petersburg – The Bends
3/22/17 – St. Augustine – Planet Sarbez
3/23/17 – Atlanta – The Earl
3/24/17 – Nashville – DRKMTTR
3/25/17 – Springfield, MO – Outland Ballroom
3/26/17 – Lawrence – Replay Lounge
3/27/17 – Kansas City – Riot Room
3/28/17 – Lincoln – Duffy’s
3/29/17 – Omaha – Petshop
3/30/17 – Fort Collins – Surfside 7
3/31/17 – Denver – Backspace
4/01/17 – colorado Springs – The Flux Capacitor
4/02/17 – Santa Fe – Meow Wolf
4/03/17 – Albuquerque – Ocotillo Room
4/05/17 – Salt Lake City
4/06/17 – Twin Falls, ID
4/08/17 – Spokane – The Observatory
4/09/17 – Seattle – Highline
4/11/17 – Eugene – WOW Hall
4/12/17 – Medford – The Bamboo Room
4/13/17 – San Francisco – Hemlock Tavern
4/14/17 – Pacifica – Winters Tavern
4/16/17 – Long Beach – Que Sera
4/20/17 – Phoenix – Trunk Space
4/21/17 – Tucson – St. Charles Tavern
4/22/17 – Bisbee – The Quarry
4/23/17 – Marfa – El Cosmico
4/24/17 – San Antonio – Limelight
4/28/17 – Pensacola – Chizuko
4/29/17 – Gainesville – Backyard

PRESS

“Kelly’s clear angelic vocals twist into strangely-shaped words and bizarre utterances that evoke Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki, her Pleasures’ expansive tripped-out music full of spacey wailing and warped guitar sounds, and pulsating bass grooves that, paired with synth sonics that stutter, skitter, flit, fleet and spread in washing torrents, have a definite Krauty/psychedelic appeal.” – Leilani Polk, Creative Loafing Tampa

“With their new video for ‘Gemini Twin,’ PLEASURES hold nothing back. Directed by Robert Jensen, a stop motion video takes the viewer into desolation and desire, a constant amalgam of confusion– exactly what the song’s subject matter entails.” – Virginia Croft, Impose Magazine

“The band revels in its oddity — it treats audio like a funhouse mirror treats a reflected image. Synth lines bend, crash and wobble like sheet metal put through a conditioning test, and Kelly’s trip-hoppy croons and yodeler-esque yips are altered with more special effects than a sci-fi soundboard. But despite the chaos, it is not without moments of warped tranquillity and even beauty.” – Matt Swanseger, Erie Times-News

“We’ve been gushing over PLEASURES for the past few months now (they even got a Best of the Bay award this year), but Katherine Kelly’s latest, and maybe greatest project is a total trip, and worthy of another plug. The former Sons of Hippies principal sounds like she’s swimming near the surface of a fishbowl on “Everything Forever,” the lead-off track on the debut outing from her new band. Things just get weirder from there. Her PLEASURES bandmates are synthesizer freaks who operate amps and instruments as if demented surgeons on a quest to create some kind of new sonic Frankenstein. It’s all tied together in a ready-for-orbit package that was clearly delivered by some kind of psychedelic, mushroom-taking postman.” – Ray Roa, Suburban Apologist

“a typhoon of digitally twisted prog-rock that blew away the patio.” – Jay Cridlin, TampaBay.com

“Pleasures creates a dark psych/cybernetics hybrid that’s somewhere between Manson Family fever dreams at Spahn Ranch and Blade Runner replicants decaying. Live there’s a good amount of NIN/Soft Moon theatrics, the uneasy alliance between humans and machines at the center of it all.” – Matthew Moyer, Orlando Weekly

“The album is an 8 track psychedelic trip filled with haunting vocals, warped guitars, stimulating synth and lyrics layered with sexual tension.” – Stitched Sound

“Drawn in by the amount of equipment and long-fingered psychedelic shadows dancing on a kick drum, I decided to stay. It was like being warmly embraced by highly advanced bee drones pleasure stinging me with pearls of sound and space..Fucking weird, right? I questioned myself..Is this really this good? Had the bartender’s heavy handed pour finally begun to take its toll?..Then my vulva started to tingle and that’s how I knew..This was some really good shit! Then a trusted on-looker turned to me and mouthed “Fucking Good”. I knew what I was hearing was true.” – Christina Elaine Vasquez, patron at The Prospector, Long Beach, CA