Psymon Spine bandleader signs to VHS, solo EP out August 20

Today, New York City’s Spaer, the solo project of Psymon Spine co-founder Peter Spears, is excited to announce his signing to Brooklyn-based indie label, Vinegar Hill Sound Records. Heralding the news is the announcement of his new EP, Lessons and Nonsense, which arrives August 20, 2026. “The Express” emerges today, previewing the explorative 6-track EP. Born from Spears' early days living in Bushwick, the track captures the gut-punch frustration of watching your train sail past without stopping. The song spent over a decade taking shape, arriving at a propulsive, hypnotic bassline that collides with layered harmonies and a second half that veers headlong into swirling, effects-drenched psychedelia.

Speaking about the first single, Peter shares, “-I wrote the first version of this song something like 12 years ago. The synth bass that drives the entire first half of the song was originally played on an acoustic guitar and doubled with tuned bells. Over the next decade, it slowly evolved, the most drastic evolution being when I brought it to my bandmates from Psymon Spine, and it was suggested that I make the guitar melody the bassline. I made the change, but the song was still deemed too unlistenable for Psymon Spine, so with nothing to lose, I kept pushing it further. Besides juxtaposing the relentless bassline with Brian Wilson-esque vocal harmonies and pushing the second half deeper into the psych rock world, I dug out my old 404 and decided to learn it properly. It follows the anguish and patterns of despair, hope, pleading, and hatred that are accompanied by waiting for the J train, seeing one in the distance, celebrating, then being forced to watch as it blows past you in the express track.”

LISTEN TO “THE EXPRESS”

Lessons & Nonsense is an EP that sweats the small stuff — finding entire worlds in overlooked corners of nature, relationships, and the mundane absurdity of everyday life. Sonically, it draws freely from psych rock, trip-hop, folk, and pop without feeling beholden to any of them, layering lush vocal harmonies over exploding drums, warped samples, and finger-picked acoustic guitar cutting through synth-heavy soundscapes. The songs span years of creative evolution, and throughout, Spaer holds beauty and brutality, humor and sincerity, hope and cynicism in the same open palm.

• The Salamander and the Snail
• The Express
• Indie Movie
• Vaguely Pleasant
• The Woodstove
• These Bugs

ABOUT SPAER:

Spaer is the solo project of musician and visual artist Peter Spears. Like a rainbow quilt sewn of whatever scraps its creator found in the attic, Spaers’ music is eclectic by nature, not force. He’s not trying to seem clever: it is simply how his brain works to erect bridges between sonic lands which most would never think to associate. Those familiar with Psymon Spine (the experimental pop outfit Spears co-founded in 2012) may recognize his unique ability to irreverently, yet convincingly, bend genre until you stop thinking in terms of genre altogether.

While there is clear sonic overlap with Psymon Spine, Spaer definitively inhabits its own space, acting as a sort of test kitchen for Spears to explore some of his most unhinged creative ideas. Vocal harmonies reminiscent of a Smiley Smile era Brian Wilson sit with purpose atop exploding drums and warped samples of Spears’ own voice and instruments. Finger-picked acoustic guitar proliferates otherwise synth-laden and shape-shifting soundscapes for a result that feels psychedelic and broad, yet thematically and sonically cohesive. It’s not easy listening, but it’s easy to listen to and easy to get lost in.

Spaer’s newest offering Lessons & Nonsense sweats the small stuff, with a penchant for metaphor through animism and building boundless worlds in tiny physical spaces. It feels like a friend encouraging you to look - no, really look - at the intricate, meandering channels of a cool leaf he found. If you give yourself fully to the moment, you realize you hold an entire world in your hand. The EP’s opener, “The Salamander and the Snail”, was inspired by a snail he once (actually) saw riding on the back of a salamander, who was itself riding a flip-flop like a life raft. Spears felt moved watching the two tumble in circles around a waterfall at the mouth of a cave and was inspired to write this touching reflection on friendship, futility, and relational cycles. In the EP’s penultimate song, “The Woodstove,” Spears croons from the perspective of a protective and ultimately concerningly possessive woodstove. And in the EP’s closer, “These Bugs,” he lovingly pokes fun at his vegan girlfriend, forced to kill ants following a hostile takeover of their kitchen.

Across the project, Spears is able to hold all at once beauty and brutality, hope and cynicism, humor and a genuine love of life. Fans of psych rock, trip-hop, folk, indie, and even pop, will all find resonance in the expanse of sounds by Spears. And if you don’t care about genre at all, all the better.

ABOUT VHS RECORDS:

Vinegar Hill Sound Records (VHS Records) is an independent, artist-run record label based in Brooklyn, New York, founded in 2024 by producer, mixer, and engineer Reed Black. Born out of the storied Vinegar Hill Sound recording studio, a 1,200-square-foot hybrid analog-digital space housed in a 19th-century former warehouse between DUMBO and the Navy Yard, the label carries forward the studio's ethos of handcrafted, deeply personal music-making.

Black, who has spent over a decade recording major artists including Solange, Karen O, Wet, and Depeche Mode, launched VHS Records with a different ambition in mind: not scale, but intimacy. Inspired by the community spirit of classic labels like Stax Records, VHS operates as a small, deliberately curated roster where every release is made with care and intention.

Free from outside investors and commercial pressures, VHS Records draws its strength from the same source as the studio that spawned it: a belief that the best records are made by people who care deeply, working in a space designed to let them do exactly that.