As famous poet Edgar Allen Poe once said, “there is no beauty without strangeness”. One artist who has taken this ethos to heart is Pete Beat, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne based sound engineer and musician, who makes unorthodox music to reflect the unusual times that we live in. For his latest sonic adventure, Pete Beat is going extraterrestrial in ‘Another Galaxy’.
This song is set to be the opening track from the artist’s forthcoming album, The Strange Museum, which is his fourth record to date. The name is especially apt as the album portrays Pete Beat‘s experience of an involuntary stay in a psychiatric hospital in 2010, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It’s a weighty theme and the musician clearly isn’t afraid of delving into the deepest part of his mental health struggles, as we hear with ‘Another Galaxy’. Here the upbeat, playful melody is juxtaposed with Pete‘s feeling that he’s “from another planet”, although the strangeness is echoed in the spacious production and unexpected melange of sounds. The combination of atmospheric synths, the ska-influenced rhythms, and the artist’s melancholic drawl altogether gives an off-kilter sensation that gives us all but a tiny insight into Peter Beat‘s experience.
More than just a way to highlight this often sidelined aspect of mental health care, writing songs like this is an impactful therapy that this musician credits with saving his life.
Listen to ‘Another Galaxy’ in our Outsiders Club playlist.
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