Pixel Grip

Formed in 2019 Rita Lukea (Vocals)・Jonathon Freund (Synth) ・Tyler Ommen (Drums)Pixel Grip’s sound is both seductive and confrontational – a dark, club-driven sound that blends elements of synth-pop, EBM (electronic body music), house, and industrial into their own edgy, danceable, and immersive ethos. Pixel Grip is known for their high-energy live performances and moody, avant-garde aesthetic. In 2024 they toured as direct support to noise-rock contemporaries, HEALTH. Followed by a (sold out) North American headline run of their own, which included a stop at the iconic punk festival RIOT Fest. Often exploring themes of desire, power, and liberation, underground cult classics such as “ALPHAPUSSY” & “Demon Chaser” have been used in campaigns by fashion powerhouses such as VERSACE & Alexander Vauthier. Relentless touring and placements with major brands have helped push Pixel Grip to the forefront of indie music. Pixel Grip’s ensuing LP (Summer 2025) arrives as they prepare to expand their reach into the EU & UK for the first time. On their third album, Percepticide the Death of Reality, the Chicago-trio looks within and around at a shifting landscape of fragmented perceptions and social disengagement. The album marks an important part in each of their lives, both musically and personally. Recorded over three years in Los Angeles & Chicago, each member privately faced their own demons, including betrayal, addiction, and neglect. "Percepticide" a portmanteau – a term that originates from – "percipere" (to perceive) and -cide (to kill)– in essence "the killing of perception. "‘Percepticide’ is a cognitive distortion and a symptom of trauma – beliefs you hold to be true are shattered – as you question everyone and everything around you. My dream is that the expression of my rage can help someone else feel empowered and at the very least, less alone. You’re never stuck, and you’re never alone, say Lukea.

The egg has a crack in it. Tally marks on a chalkboard. Infinity signs made out of summer camp friendship bracelets. A day of the week pill counter. These are some alternative ways of marking the passage of time. Ways of seeing, knowing, feeling. One minute you’re staring into your computer screen, the next you’re on the beach, in a hot tub, in the mountains. Time, fractured, chopped, and screwed, is also included in the art and is a conceptual underpinning for Head Body Connector, the third offering from Noah Prebish, Peter Spears, and Brother Michael Rudinski’s Psymon Spine project. It is a record that relishes in the heady, the psychedelic, the abstraction of temporality as we know it. 

Perhaps it would be fair to say that Head Body Connector’s freaking with the timeline has its roots in writing music during a pandemic. It is an unhinged celebration of togetherness, as Prebish puts it, a way to make each other laugh about how crazy everything was at the time. To find joy in small things. The record was written mostly in lockdown, split between different home studios and friends’ back porches. Montauk, the Catskills, Boston, and Brooklyn. Outside it was fall, autumn air, political disquietude looming in the background. It was also an era of missing one’s boys. That’s how longtime collaborator Sabine Holler felt from across the globe in Berlin, when she penned lyrics to “Boys,” one of the record’s singles. “Cycling around and I’m going to lose it,” she sings, “It’s never too late/to know what I’m not supposed to show.” Around her, guitars tweak out, a strident run of synthesizers. All of it creates a feeling of psychic unease. Like: you are up all night, your eyes are swollen, the beer is getting warm, the TV set is stuck on the channel search setting.

Head Body Connector is a studio record from a band obsessed with production. It’s also a record that more so than any other Psymon release is interested in explicitly sounding live. It’s a guitar-forward album. Something that is ready-made to be performed. A little Sonic Youth, a little YMO. It basks in the glow of early 2000s New York-based dance punk and electroclash. If you were to ground it in something more current: Kevin Parker meets Spirit of the Beehive. Very much in the same universe as New York friends Mr. Twin Sister. “Bored of Guitar,” is a provocation becauseit is built around the guitar. It is about what it feels like to be on the road, touring constantly, having your goals shift and refocus. It’s angular, leans into textured post-punk percussion, the guitar is like a big and bright wave of light.

“Wizard Acid,” circles back to feelings of uneasiness, being trapped in a haunted house. It’s irreverent, really funny (“I’ve got to get out before I’m a decor/or it turns me into a piece of furniture,” goes one memorable line). But it’s also kind of sexy, a big disco track loaded up with synths. It features Liquid Liquid’s Dennis Young’s percussion and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors, FLYLO, The Roots) on backing vocals. Head Body Connector also saw the induction of two longtime friends of the band, drummer Zeb Stern and singer/guitarist Sarah Aument, both on tour and in the studio. A short while later, singer/songwriter Aubrey Haddard would join the fold as well. More than anything, Head Body Connector is the crystallization of a creative vision, a truly joyful psychotropic roller coaster of a record. Made during a time when people yearned to dance, now out in a time where dancing can be done all day, all the time. 

In 2025, the band followed the record with a series of remix releases from MGMT, GIFT, This is Lorelei, Disq, Love Injection, lovetempo, Sam OB, and Matt FX, eventually coalescing into the aptly named Heady Remix Collector.