Pete Fij - Up's The New Down Pete Fij

Renowned for his unmistakable voice and wry lyrical touch, Pete Fij(alkowski) releases his debut solo album "Up's The New Down" on 25th September

Released on Tip Top Recordings, the album features 10 songs that that brim with melody, wit and understated charm. After years of singing downbeat songs of melancholy & loss, after waving goodbye to a long-term relationship, after working at a care home during the Covid pandemic, after seeing people off from the platform of life in his role as a Funeral Celebrant, Pete Fij has decided to have a reset. Slinging back on the electric guitar, ditching the job, upping the BPMs, and falling in love again has resulted in Pete embracing his fuzzed up dream- pop past but also throwing in elements of pop and electronica.

It may not have been entirely intentional, but listening back to Up's The New Down, Pete Fij discovered an album quietly charting its own awakening: a step out of the shadows and into the sunshine after a long winter of downbeat hibernation. Where once there was introspection, there's now something broader and brighter - a celebration of life, love and electric guitars, with a clandestine side affair with programmed synths. Musically, Fij has been happily magpie- like, rifling through a lifetime's record collection and pocketing whatever catches the light - from The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Pixies to LCD Soundsystem, DIIV and even Viagra Boys.

A new single, taken from the album, "Wake Up Honey" is released on 4th September. Pete first burst onto the scene in the early 90s as the frontman and guitarist of post-shoegaze / pre- Britpop band Adorable, whose 1993 album Against Perfection, released on Creation Records, is regularly referred to as a lost indie classic, with the band picking up multiple 'Single of the Week' awards in the NME, and topping the Indie charts. Noel Gallagher once told Creation Records' Alan McGhee that dropping Adorable from the label was one of his biggest mistakes, whilst other artists such as Ash, Slowdive and Brian Jonestown Massacre amongst others have all expressed their admiration for the band.

Following this he joined up with his brother Krzys to form One Little Indian band Polak (Swansongs 2000 / Rubbernecking 2002) which took in influences from the likes of Sparklehorse, Radiohead and dEUS, and led The Independent to call him "the most gifted lyricist since Jarvis Cocker last put pen to paper". There then followed a musical exile, after having what Pete now describes as 'a musical breakdown' before re-emerging alongside celebrated House of Love guitarist Terry Bickers to release two critically acclaimed albums as Pete Fij / Terry Bickers on 2014's Broken Heart Surgery, and 2017's We Are Millionaires, winning the Roundtable 'Single of The Week' on Steve Lamacq's BBC 6Music show - "Beautiful" (MOJO) "Unfailingly lovely" (UNCUT) "Stunning" (OHM) "Beautifully constructed" (Q).

Adorable then reformed for a few weeks in 2019 for a series of one off dates that sold out in record time, playing bigger venues than they did in their heyday - and then broke up again. Pete's lush and rich baritone voice has been compared to Lee Hazlewood, Lou Reed and Richard Hawley in the past - and fans will be pleased to hear that, if anything, it's sounding stronger, more urgent and characterful than ever.