Peter Manos’ debut EP – Do You Turn Red? – will be released by Capitol Records on June 10. The set will include his new single, “Tennessee,” and five other tracks he recently recorded in his L.A. home studio, plus Manos’ 2017 debut single, “In My Head.” View the trailer for Do You Turn Red? HERE. See below for track listing. Fans who pre-order the digital EP will instantly receive “Tennessee.” Do You Turn Red? is also available for pre-order in CD, cassette and opaque blue vinyl editions. The New York Times said, “Peter Manos is from Texas,but ‘Tennessee’ is no country song. It’s an electronic lament, Auto-Tuned and steeped in James Blake and Frank Ocean; it also hints at the Beatles’ chromatic chord progressions…even as programmed arpeggios swell to support him, he’s left uncomprehending and alone, pure male angst.” Idolator observed, “this is the kind of song that casts an uneasy spell on the listener – commanding a spot on any respectable late-night playlist.” Variance praised the “tender yet moody cut.”
Released earlier this month, “Tennessee” has already amassed nearly one million combined streams. View Do You Turn Red? is both a guidepost pointing toward what may come and a snapshot of this moment. Here is Manos at the front of his career, full of ideas, and all of them tangibly intimate. Despite joining Capitol in 2019, and relocating from the outskirts of Dallas to the heart of Los Angeles, Manos still makes music in a vacuum of sorts. He works almost exclusively solo out of his downtown apartment, in a bedroom-turned- recording-den. Manos has a knack for carving out his own space within something familiar, as these songs make clear. His taste dovetails perfectly with his skills as a one-stop shop singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and producer. There’s the slyly sexy groove topped by his delicate falsetto on “You Don’t Know Me.” There’s the hypnotic cascade of guitar and odd samples that underpin “Zach’s Ballad.” And the way that “At Night” starts as a solitary psych-soul excursion but ends in a hail of live drums and ghostly oohs. “Do You Turn Red?” arrives after five songs of blue mood like a sudden rush of blood. It plays like a confession and feels as raw. Taken with his lyrics – equal parts diaristic share and poetic scrawl – it all feels deeply personal. “If it feels like looking in on something private, it is,” says Manos. “Growing up, no one knew I was playing music. I did sports, went to parties, and had great friends, but it was a secret.”
Manos wound up at Nashville’s Belmont University with the goal of studying music until music allowed him to drop out. That happened during his second year, when over a couple days in the moments between classes and coursework, Manos made “In My Head” in his dorm room – the same fully realized version that appears on Do You Turn Red? A buddy who helped him record warned him, “Remember, people’s first songs don’t usually do anything.” Yet “In My Head” found its way onto numerous playlists, from Spotify’s Pop Rising all the way to Today’s Top Hits.
Combined global streams of the track now top 300 million. Hailing “In My Head” as a “Song You Need to Know,” Rolling Stone observed, “In aworld largely ruled by speedy trap tempos, ‘In My Head’ proves that ballads can still surprise.” Ones To Watch praised “You Don’t Know Me,” one of Manos’ follow-up tracks, as “truly breathtaking.” Manos produced the EP’s six new tracks with Sam Ricci (SZA, Kendrick Lamar). Do You Turn Red? was mixed by Jeff Ellis (Frank Ocean) and mastered by Dale Becker (Khalid). “There’s a lot of emotion and thought in these songs,” says Manos. “I’m completely obsessive about making music and getting it right — having every piece sound exactly the way I want it.”
Track Listing – Do You Turn Red?
1. My Mind
2. You Don’t Know Me
3. At Night
4. Tennessee
5. Zach’s Ballad
6. Do You Turn Red?
7. In My Head
