Sex Week, the rising New York duo of actor and musician Pearl Amanda Dickson and songwriter and producer Richard Orofino, released their debut, Sex Week EP, on August 30th via Grand Jury. Songs like, “Kid Muscle” showcase the band’s unique seductive sound and alchemy, pairing sprawling slowcore with black metal-inspired growls and sinister whispers. The result is an unsettling alien plod that Orofino says feels like “a song from another planet.”
The EP’s previous singles “Cockpit” and “Angel Blessings” have garnered considerable buzz for the band, receiving praise from Rolling Stone, PAPER, The FADER, Paste, Consequence, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Nylon, and more.
Sex Week’s origin begins with a mixtape. A few years ago, Dickson made a playlist called Colorado 2 Omaha for a friend about to drive across the country to NYC. It stuck around after the journey and soundtracked countless nights in her friend’s apartment, so much so that her friend’s roommate, Orofino, would become obsessed with it. And with its creator. After a visit to New York, the pair immediately clicked and Sex Week was born. “Most of the artists on there – Liz Phair, Elusin, Walter Egan, Wolf Alice – we connected over,” says Dickson. “Then Richard returned the favor and showed me Judee Sill and Double Virgo.”
Soon after, the band released their debut single “Toad Mode,” a playful and entrancing song dotted with voice memos of their friend’s cat meowing. “With some of our songs, I want people to giggle and sing along, and with the others I want them to cry and scream,” says Dickson.
“I think we have very different approaches to writing which really works in our favor,” says Orofino. “I come from a more proper musical background so chords, production, and instrumentation come naturally to me while Pearl is a writer. Her lyrical concepts are so unique and I obsess over her melodies.”
But pressed to explain what they’re really chasing, ultimately Sex Week says it’s the intimacy invoked by the great duets & duos of the past: Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, Sonny and Cher, David Lynch and Laura Dern. That last non-musical pair might feel like a curveball, if not for the cinematic quality of the project. The “Angel Blessings” video feels like a fever dream pulled straight from Inland Empire. And Dickson & Orofino are proper polymaths who also direct videos for themselves and their Brooklyn friends in Babehoven, Bloomsday, and Palehound.
