Comprised of Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs, Melbourne, Australia-based electro folk duo Oh, Pep! can trace their origins to when the act formed while Hally and Emmerichs were students at a music secondary school. And since 2012, the duo have quickly amassed a tremendous amount of commercial and critical success at a relatively young age — the duo have released three EPs that have received both national and international attention, including a huge CMJ last year in which KCRW, NPR‘s Bob Boilen breathlessly praised them, a NPR Tiny Desk Concert appearance and a Nashville’s AMA’s Pop Matters appearance, as well as appearances at The Woodford Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, The National Folk Festival in Canberra, and Folk Alliance International, Kansas City. Adding to the duo’s growing national and international profile, they’ve won the Young Folk Performer of the Year and were nominated in the Best Folk Roots Category at 2014’s The Age Music Victoria Awards.
2016 may be the biggest year for the duo of Hally and Emmerichs will be releasing their much-anticipated full-length debut Stadium Cake on June 24, 2016 through Dualtone Records and the album which was recorded in Echo Lake, Nova Scotia last August with Canadian producer Daniel Ledwell has the duo expanding upon the songwriting approach and sound that first won them national and international attention — namely the duo’s ability to subtly mesh lightness and darkness within their material. The album’s first single “Doctor Doctor” has the band pairing stuttering cascades of synths, propulsive boom bap drums with Hally and Emmerich’s ethereal and sultry vocals singing lyrics focusing on a narrator that is suffering through self-doubt and indecision while life is rushing past them and a dysfunctional relationship that they can’t seem to get out of. Throughout the song there’s a palpable tension — the sort of tension that’s unusual for such buoyant and playful pop.
Haley and Emmerichs will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout the Spring and Summer that’ll start off in their native Australia, a lengthy tour across the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, France and Spain and a North American tour that includes a June 29, 2016 at Mercury Lounge. Check out tour dates below.
