It’s 3am. I’m on a streetcar heading east on Queen street with a long way to go.  My friends and I had initially met up at a loft downtown to see Woodhands, but the place was too damn hot so a few of us reluctantly sought the dingy cool of a pub a few blocks away. Unfortunately, not only was the bar in question no less warm, but it was also far too hip to have the dingy charm I was after.

After a scotch, a shot and a friend of mine causing a scene with the doorman we moseyed down the road. I turned my head for a second and my two sauced companions had stumbled into another bar. I left them to their fun and kept walking.

On the streetcar I dug out the ol’ headphones and looked through the ever-changing album selection for the perfect audio-nightcap. The usual just wouldn’t do. I wasn’t drunk enough to be mopey and introspective, but didn’t feel like anything too commandingly catchy either.  Carried in the inevitable direction of home, autopilot was in control and I sought the stoic guiding hand of some well-crafted beats.

This is where having extra room on your mp3 player comes in handy, as it allows for those otherwise forgotten albums to hang on just a while longer before being shuffled off to make space. In this case I’d been meaning to give Peter Project’s self-titled debut a solid listen for months, as I enjoyed what I’d heard, but ended up repeatedly pushing it off to the side.

Here was my chance: I finally got around to letting the beats of this album dance between my ears. Sure, a streetcar at 3am after an overdrawn night out might not be the best situation to really delve into a record, but in some cases it doesn’t get much better.

As each grooveilicious track sauntered through my shitty and ill-fitting ear-buds I couldn’t help but keep lamenting that I hadn’t given Peter Project some solid consideration prior. Not the usual fare for one of my many late-night trips home, the varied and expertly woven grooves quickly proved to be exactly the fuel my increasingly lethargic mind needed to make the trip.

—

Peter Project - Fair and Square

Hear more at his Myspace page or grab a digital copy of the album here.