Public Relations - s/t

Communality has been a recurring theme within the activities of the constellation of artists formed around Rotterdam's Lewsberg and it's one that's explored to an even greater degree on this debut outing from the eight person collective, Public Relations. Congregating on the island of Vlieland back in 2021, one of the most sparsely populated municipalities in the Netherlands provided the locale for this disparate group of musicians to explore whatever ideas they felt impelled towards. Out of those conditions a collection of 19 songs of varying form and function emerged, effectively serving as a grab bag of inspirations, diversions, left turns and, most clearly, an open door policy to collaboration. This isn't an album in the traditional sense, there's no conceptual beginning, middle or end. If there is a centre to return to, then it's a feeling defined by freedom and mutality rather than a tangible aesthetic. It's no surprise, then, to see the group cycle through various styles and approaches, field recording interludes and poetry intersecting with various manifestations of odd/outsider-pop & folk rendered sparesly, simply, and you know, clearly lovingly. You could single out any number of the ideas on show here and develop that one song outwards into a wider, standalone collection, which attests to the level of creativity at play but also probably misses the point of the exercise as a whole. Public Relations seems to be most obviously concerned with likeminded, shared expression, each allowed their space. no one ruling hand to guide it. It's actually quite rare to encounter such democratic processes in collaborative music making - there's more often than not a dictarotial presence pushing things along - and because of it, Public Relations holds something really quite hopeful within it. There's a reason why we're calling this a collective and not a supergroup. Ego firmly left at door, everyone in service of the whole.