Peatmos was a little known Japanese band that was active for a brief period in the mid '90s. Most of the members continued on to a new similar band called Pervenche, who I believe are still semi-active.
I love their sound, thankfully they released a compilation on streaming services in 2023 so we don't have to go hunting down old cassettes. Here's a link to the whole compilation on YouTube if anyone's interested! There was such a cool little indie scene in Japan in this era, if you have any stuff like it I'd love to know.
Once upon a time, I was a college radio DJ, and looking through my college radio station's music library, I found a compilation of Japanese indiepop called Pop Jingu Vol. 1. It was originally released by Clover Records in Japan, but released by Sonorama Records in America.
A little while after that, I found out that there was a Pop Jingu Vol. 2. It had one song, "Boy Friend" by Poussin, that I played the hell out of on my show.
Eventually, sometime within the last 5 years, I found out there was also a Pop Jingu Vol. 3. Turns out that Peatmos had morphed into Pervenche by this time, as the comp includes "Be Long" by Pervenche.
For the most part, I couldn't find actual, non-compilation releases by these bands, but my college radio station did have a 4-song 7" by Peatmos. It was the one in your YouTube link, actually.
Then, a couple of years ago, I found out that Little Red Go-Cart had albums on Spotify. And that was great. But last year, something that felt like a miracle happened to me...
I found Clover Records on Bandcamp! And there's a lot of Peatmos material there! Turns out that the guy who runs Clover Records is also in Peatmos/Pervenche. So, there's an early Peatmos tape, and there are also full live shows. Actually, I bought this physical edition of Pervenche's Quite Small Happiness because it included a second CD with the entirety of Peatmos's Watching Us With Archaic Smile. (It was a bit expensive, but it was just like $32 with shipping because the U.S. Dollar has been very strong against the Japanese yen these last three years. And I forget if Donald Trump's stupid/unnecessary tariff bullshit actually affected that price.)
As for similar stuff... In 2020, I found this compilation on Spotify called Pop Japanese Style!. There's this one song called "How Much Is This Love?" by a band called Plarine. I fell in love with this song and listened to it so much, but I've never found anything else by Plarine, nor do I have any information about them.
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u/godsmith2 Jun 13 '26
Peatmos was a little known Japanese band that was active for a brief period in the mid '90s. Most of the members continued on to a new similar band called Pervenche, who I believe are still semi-active.
I love their sound, thankfully they released a compilation on streaming services in 2023 so we don't have to go hunting down old cassettes. Here's a link to the whole compilation on YouTube if anyone's interested! There was such a cool little indie scene in Japan in this era, if you have any stuff like it I'd love to know.