Standout Track: No. 1, “PNKLKR” (“pink licker”), a cool synth-pop single built on a hand-clappy drum sample by Jugzy Jord, a.k.a. Jordan Gelling. The rest comes from Pleasure Curses’ main producers, Jahn Alexander Teetsov, 23, and Evan Maxwell Grice, 22, who throw in a sci-fi bassline and a bath of calming synth sounds. Amid it all, Teetsov, a fan of Factory Records, sings about how “everything is part of something.”
Musical Motivation: Teetsov says Pleasure Curses wrote the song around the time of the Boston marathon bombing and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. Its bubbly energy is supposed to counteract the dark mood of those days in April. It’s “not too deep,” he says, unlike the group’s other material, “which is a lot darker.” But while the track keeps it light, the mostly freestyled lyrics offer a slight edge. “I guess it’s about being a little disoriented,” Teetsov says.
Status Bro: Teetsov and Grice—who live in Springfield and Alexandria, respectively—first met as kids at a rock-music summer camp in Alexandria. They stayed mostly acquaintances but not much more until last year, when Teetsov returned to the area after four years in Europe. While visiting his girlfriend at James Madison University, Teetsov reconnected with Grice, who graduated from Madison in May. Their musical compatibility came as a pleasant surprise. “At gigs, a few people have come up and asked, ‘Are you two brothers?’ Because they couldn’t understand how two different people who aren’t related could click like that,” Teetsov says.
Pleasure Curses plays Comet Ping Pong on Aug. 24 and DC9 on Sept. 5. Listen to "PNKLKR" after the jump.