Peach Kelli Pop

Allie Hanlon launched Peach Kelli Pop as a solo outlet while keeping her drum stool in Ottawa’s White Wires during the early 2010s. She lifted the project’s name from a Redd Kross song, and the resulting tracks emerged as compact, hook-driven numbers centered on invented dance steps, summer days, and lighthearted escapism. Working entirely alone, she captured the material with classic low-fidelity methods and issued several Burger releases before White Wires disbanded; once she relocated to Los Angeles she assembled a road band that carried the songs worldwide. Successive albums gradually broadened the palette as outside players joined the sessions, culminating in 2018’s Gentle Leader, which appeared on Mint Records—the same imprint once home to spiritual predecessors Cub—and confirmed Peach Kelli Pop’s standing as a premier punk-pop outfit.

The debut self-titled album surfaced in 2010 on Going Gaga Records before subsequent pressings arrived via Infinity Cat and Burger. In 2011, Hanlon stepped away from White Wires long enough to recruit friends for a touring lineup. After White Wires issued their second album, II, late that year and completed another round of shows, she turned back to her own material, resulting in Peach Kelli Pop II, which Burger released in late 2012. White Wires’ final album, III, arrived in early 2013, by which point Hanlon had settled in Los Angeles and was devoting most of her time to the road. For the follow-up she enlisted outside contributors for the first time—Katy Goodman of La Sera and Wyatt Blair among them—while ex-Dios member Joel Jerome handled recording duties; Burger put out Peach Kelli Pop III in early 2015. At that stage the live unit consisted of Alex Edgeworth on lead guitar, sisters Gina and Sophie Negrini handling bass and keys, and Mindee Jorgensen on drums, the same configuration featured on the 2016 “Halloween Mask” single issued by Lauren Records. Shortly afterward Edgeworth departed, Sophie Negrini switched to guitar, and Shelly Schimek took over drums.

Hanlon tracked the subsequent Which Witch EP herself in late 2017 inside her childhood bedroom in Ottawa, using four-track equipment left behind after her move to the States. The six concise songs nodded to her earlier solitary methods yet revealed clear songwriting progress; Mint Records released the EP for Record Store Day in 2018. By then she had already completed the next full-length. Contributions from current band members, additional drumming by Andrew Bassett of Mean Jeans, and co-production from Roland Cosio (Together Pangea, Fuzz) helped shape Gentle Leader, the most stylistically varied Peach Kelli Pop album to date. Mint issued it in May 2018, after which the group resumed touring.