{"product_id":"pile-sunshine-and-balance-beams","title":"Pile - Sunshine And Balance Beams","description":"Pile’s ninth album is a Sisyphean parable concerned with labor and living. To write it, singer Rick Maguire inhabited “a dark place,” wrestling with the concept that there is no enlightenment, no end to suffering. Maguire explores workaholism, the myth of meritocracy, and acceptance of mortality—all through a devilish allegory of trudging through a shadowy forest towards the uncertain dream of a bright clearing.\nPile wrestles with existential and social contradictions by evoking sonic in-betweens. The music exists somewhere in the temporary equilibrium of light and shadow, chaos and order. Heated rain-like guitars, shifting drums that pave sinuous roads in sound and pace, eerie synths, and aqueous strings add to a panoramic production of loud-quiet dynamism matching the emotionality of the band’s thunderous performances.\nThe group also favored freewheeling performances that would animate the storytelling, while enlisting a string section (violins, viola, cello) to perform incandescent, through-composed arrangements co-written by cellist Eden Rayz and Pile. They drew inspiration from cinema and opera scores by Chopin, Bernard Herrmann, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, lending Sunshine a larger-than-life sound that intensifies Pile’s blistering realizations of some of their most accessible songwriting to date.\nThe recording is a noticeable leap in production value, and centers Maguire’s vocals in new and exciting ways.","brand":"Sooper Records","offers":[{"title":"Very Limited Indies Only Clear \"Boris Purple\" LP with Exclusive 'Balance Beams' Track + Insert (500 Only)","offer_id":50156292866326,"sku":"RMX-46960","price":25.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cd","offer_id":50156293947670,"sku":"RMX-46962","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":50156294471958,"sku":"RMX-46963","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0839\/7750\/2998\/files\/ebd929fc4de6396f05c0bc3fd4a23760_5d154681-e36b-49e7-ad22-90b443ed3e51.jpg?v=1750462905","url":"https:\/\/resident-music-uk.myshopify.com\/products\/pile-sunshine-and-balance-beams","provider":"Resident Music UK","version":"1.0","type":"link"}