Recorded across Berlin, Sunderland and Oxford over several years

Pea Sea’s third full-length A Pyke of Patina Slate arrives eight years after Lonnin Life and over a decade since The Debatable Land, which featured production and instrumentation from Field Music. Tracked across Berlin, Sunderland, and Oxford over several years, the new album continues the thread of sparse arrangements and regional dislocation, while introducing a more fractured and brooding atmosphere.

Title: A Pyke of Patina Slate
Artist: Pea Sea
Release Date: 2025-07-18
Genres: Art Rock, No Wave, Post-punk, Psych-folk
Label: Sea Records
Description: Pea Sea’s third album A Pyke of Patina Slate drops July 18, 2025 via Sea Records. Recorded in Berlin, Sunderland and Oxford.

Contributors to the album include Tom English of Maxïmo Park on drums and Peter Brewis (Field Music), who also handled production duties. Additional engineering and instrumental support came from Tim Greaves and Adam Serafini.

The record spans a loose range of song forms, alternating between slow, stripped-down ballads like Now That You’re Gone and Home From the Hill, minor-key folk material (The Loam, The Dominie’s Log), and more rhythm-forward tracks such as Silloth Green and Youth Unit. Lascaux Motifs, reportedly written in reaction to Les Cox Sportifs, features a sustained sequence of vocal release over a minimal structure.

Pea Sea has previously shared bills with Gruff Rhys, Calvin Johnson, The Vaselines, and Roddy Woomble, among others. BBC6 Music aired a live session in 2013, and Marc Riley and Lauren Laverne have both included Pea Sea in regular rotation.

Pea Sea is the project of Matthew Pickering, based between Sunderland and Berlin. The band’s first release, The Debatable Land (Sea Records, 2013), featured production from Field Music and contributions from members of the North East’s post-punk and indie scenes. The second album, Lonnin Life (2017), continued this trajectory with a more acoustic and lo-fi aesthetic. Pea Sea’s songwriting often incorporates regional references, archival phrasing, and literary figures of speech, avoiding standard pop structures in favor of more oblique forms. Pea Sea has released all recordings via Sea Records, a small UK-based label.

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