Rose Main Reading Room, the band’s fourth album, is one of 2024’s best releases
In 2020, Peel Dream Magazine was another Shoegaze band in New York. They released their second album, Agitprop Alterna in April of that year, just as Covid was kicking in. With lockdown in place, the band’s leader and main songwriter, Joe Stevens, packed up and moved west to Los Angeles. He wanted to get into music scoring, and there was no place better to get started. But the cross-country trek brought more than just a change of scenery to pursue a new artistic venture. It would change the musical direction of his band as well.
Stevens wrote and recorded Peel Dream Magazine’s first album, Modern Meta Physic, by himself in his Brooklyn apartment in 2017. It was made quickly in a month and the sound is lo-fi and experimental. “I tried to stretch simple ideas into full songs without forcing myself to write proper endings, bridges, or any other ornamental flourishes I’d grown accustomed to,” he wrote on his Bandcamp page. “While the idea isn’t really that novel in the grand scheme of things, it was a major deal to me at the time.”
Peel Dream Magazine’s second release had been a band album, and now, living in L.A., Stevens was back to recording on his own. He scored a few commercials since arriving in Tinseltown, and he next began work on a third Peel Dream Magazine album. PDMs debut had been well received, but after it was completed, Stevens did not want to repeat himself. This would also apply to the new record, and it would not sound like the post-punk/Shoegaze music he made in New York. Now, living in Los Angeles, he reached into the music of The Beach Boys, inspired by the group’s late-sixties records after Pet Sounds.
The album Pad (2022) must have surprised his followers. Instead of a batch of songs, Stevens created a narrative about going on an adventure to reunite with his New York bandmates. Stereogum described Pad as “a concept album about him getting kicked out of his own band, now set to jazz and country-tinged baroque-pop fixated on ’60s harmonies and Beach Boys melodies.” The drone sound of Peel Dream Magazine’s previous albums was replaced with banjo, vibes, clarinet, and glockenspiel. But the new music wasn’t satisfying for long. Stevens later told Northern Transmissions, “I got really tired of it, of living in that world and playing that music live.” Stevens’ next album project would change direction once again and take longer to complete. It would be Peel Dream Magazine’s finest album yet.
Joe Stevens grew up in White Plains, New York, an hour out of the city. He took piano lessons growing up and his parents often took him into New York City to visit Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History—the tourist spots. These places would later become subjects in his songs, but, at that time, he was a ‘90s kid who listened to Nirvana. After college, he moved to Brooklyn and began recording music. “I’ve always been very serious about it,” Stevens recalled. “Even before Peel Dream Magazine, writing songs was my life.” Stevens is a fan of recorded music, and he is a self-described “album guy.” Except for the second album, Stevens produces all the band’s music.
After finishing Modern Meta Physic, Stevens put together a band for the follow-up album, Agitprop Alterna. The music is heavier than the debut, with a Shoegaze style that earned comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, and Broadcast. While the debut had just been him, Agitprop Alterna is more collaborative, with all three band members getting equal songwriting credit. Some of it was still recorded at home, but the majority was made in a Brooklyn studio with producer/musician Kelly Winrich. After the album was completed, the band had extra songs left over and they were packaged as an eight-song EP, Moral Panic, released three months later. Unfortunately, with lockdown in place, there were no live shows to promote either release.
Rose Main Reading Room is Peel Dream Magazine’s most recent album, released in September 2024. Though not a concept album like Pad, the lyrics find Stevens looking back nostalgically. “The seed of the record had started when I was doing some therapy and thinking more about my childhood,” Stevens told Stereogum. Songs take him back to the New York he remembers, visiting museums with his mothers and seeing the city from the eyes of a visitor. The album title references the New York Public Library, a place where he often hung out as a child. Some songs are direct about places and things, most vivid on “Central Park West,” which has Stevens walking around a museum. Others are more personal memories like “Recital,” which recalls attending a piano recital and being preoccupied with a girl in the room he would never meet.
The music on Rose Main Reading Room is pop-focused and closer to Belle and Sebastian than My Bloody Valentine. With its rich orchestral backing, Stevens describes it as having a “contemporary classical element to it, this repeating woodwinds thing that even though it’s not complicated musically, it’s a little symphonic element for the music heads who appreciate Steve Reich and Philip Glass and stuff like that.” Even better are the vocals on the album. Olivia Babuka Black is a prominent voice on several tracks, whether on lead, wordless backing vocals, or the back-and-forth banter on the groovy, “Wish You Well,” she’s a welcome addition to the band’s sound.
Rose Main Reading Room is a gorgeous album and for the songwriter, it is his most personal record. “I wanted to write a record that was very rooted in the here and now and my life,” said Stevens. “Some of the things that were here and now in my brain were these memories, so I was writing about stuff like that.”
The writing and recording of Rose Main Reading Room began in 2022 and Stevens worked on it through 2023 into 2024. While putting together the album, he also wrote music for a short film and later a feature movie, writing the score for Let’s Start a Cult. Stevens’ focus may shift more toward film music, but this enthusiastic listener hopes Joe Stevens never stops making Peel Dream Magazine albums. One thing is clear, Stevens doesn’t like to be stuck in one musical style and whatever he does next will be another surprise. I look forward to it.