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PILE
Sunshine and Balance Beams(Sooper Records)
Add date: 8.19.2025
Release date: 8.15.2025
Boston DIY stalwarts Pile have released their ninth album, Sunshine and Balance Beams, their first with Sooper Records. The album is about the journey toward acceptance: of oneself, one’s environment, and one’s limits. Rick Maguire, the founder of the band, explains, “I’ve used ambition and daydreaming as a motivator for as long as I can remember, and I still do. The fulfillment I receive from pursuing art has been a guiding force for me, but it can be damaging when that pursuit teases capitalist expectations of where you might be able to go and then doesn’t square with the reality that follows. I tried to write this as a story.”
Over the past 15 years and eight albums, Pile has undoubtedly established themselves as this generation’s Fugazi, building a discography and tour history deeply rooted in DIY ethos. That spirit remains, but on Sunshine and Balance Beams, the band pushes into new sonic territory, enlisting engineer Miranda Serra (Kal Marks, Kira McSpice), mixer Seth Manchester (Model/Actriz, The Hotelier, Big Brave), and mastering engineer Matt Colton (James Blake, Depeche Mode, Band Bear). The album release arrives with a video for “Deep Clay,” directed by Stafen Fernandez, who directed three of the four videos for the campaign. The video was inspired by Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.