On the Iffnesss - On the Iffnesss On the Iffnesss

On the Ifness is Sean McGuinness and Mike Petillo. Friends for more than two decades, the pair have traveled together through a generation’s worth of bands, subcultures, and movements in outsider music. McGuinness is the drummer of Philadelphia’s Pissed Jeans. Petillo is a member of Protect-U and Geo Rip, and co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based dance music labels Future Times and U-Udios.

On the Ifness encompasses all of that plus. Arriving November, 13th 2026 via PPM, the duo’s second full-length is a defi nitive after-hours studio space-out – a heavily-smogged hybrid of mutant rhythm, low end grind, and astral drift.

In 2020, On the Ifness kicked off their collaboration with a self-titled cassette-only debut, now long-since sold out. That music was at turns meditative and haunting – Hassell-inspired fourth-world moves and jazz fusion nods distressed via rust and decay. This second installment pushes forward in every sense. The compositions are nuanced and distinct with a deeper focus on the pulse. Synthesized kicks, organic percussion, and hypnotic full-kit rhythms are brought into balance with unfi ltered hooks, thoroughly alien top lines, and hazed drones.

A surprising amount of top-shelf studio technology was thrown at this record courtesy of landmark recording studio Tonal Park – a binaural microphone, vintage synthesizers, Brian Eno’s favorite harmonizer, etc. – often because it was just really fun to take this high-powered stuff for a spin. There are a few assists from the community at large, too. Geologist contributed hurdy-gurdy and synth to “Oboe Crows.” Jacob Long (Black Eyes, Earthensea) supplied cover art.

This duo relies on intuition and years of shared outer-reaches experience to feel their way through the compositions, chart unfamiliar territory, and test boundaries. On the Iff nesss fi nds McGuinness and Petillo adding new depth to the genres that their work has been most heavily identifi ed with and arrives somewhere more singular, harder to pin down. Rhythmic, but ungridded. Nominally psychedelic, but not too hung up on big-brained gestures. ECM, but kinda dirtbag. Futuristic and worn-in.