Slow Dakota
Available today via Massif Records, PJ Sauerteig released one of the Midwest artist’s wildest yet. It’s the synth pop record you have been looking for, it’s the major rock & roll escapist disc you have been desiring & more, it’s the new Slow Dakota EP Rumspringa. Titled after the Amish rite of passage of exploring the secular realm outside of their own rural communities, Sauerteig has gifted one of the most exciting & immediately gratifying releases of the autumn season.
The new Slow Dakota EP Rumspringa begins with “Abram Indiana” full of cascading keys to light those corners of the forgotten edges of your consciousness. Freedom flights of fancy are sketched with rhythm & keys to the utmost echelon of inspiration & realization as felt & heard on “Elijah Yoder” where PJ conducts an illustrious array of spinning keys & drum cues like a botanical bouquet of beats & field recorded bird sounds. Those intricately arranged synths & organic rhythms collect like morning dew drops on “Cherry Mary Michigan”, right before blending an electro-dance baroque element into the equation on the mystifying “Little Sadie Wayne Schwartz”, that skips to the dramatic finale of “Jebediah Iowa” that could either begin or conclude your favorite future cult film.
Slow Dakota & Massif Records founder PJ Sauerteig provided us with the following exclusive introductory preface to the new EP:
Rumspringa takes its name from an Amish rite of passage—wherein Amish teenagers are allowed to venture out into the modern world, wearing normal clothes, makeup, smoking, drinking, dating, using computers, driving cars. After they’ve taken their fill of running around (the German translation of Rumspringa), they’re expected to return back to their rural, modernity-shunning Amish communities. If not, they’re excommunicated. I grew up around the Amish in Northern Indiana, and have always been fascinated by them. As an EP, Rumspringa is a tongue-in-cheek nod to their cultural rite of passage, and a portrait of my own clumsy, awkward, joyful excursion into more modern sounds, instruments, and percussion. Letting myself explore genres I’ve always loved, but have never dared to incorporate into my own music. KRS-One, ZZ Top, dance music. It was tremendously fun, but I can already hear the cock crowing.
