Photos: Holy Pinto to Release WEDDING SEASON LP, Shares "us, against the world"

Holy Pinto, the indie-pop project of British songwriter Aymen Saleh, will release his new album Wedding Season on September 14. Saleh wrote the album across various spaces, including DIY sessions with Bartees Strange, who produced 'us, married' and plays guitar on 'death is in the air' and 'us, against the world.'

Photo Credit: Bobbie Knopp

Saleh has been praised for his warm, conversational songwriting and gift for pop storytelling, with NPR describing his sound as 'Sweetly jangling, good-natured Britpop.' Drawing inspiration from Death Cab for Cutie and Ben Folds, Saleh balances the melodic and sensitive with the humorous and observational.

Focus track 'us, against the world' is a soft, piano-driven song that gradually builds into a theatrical burst, capturing the nostalgia and longing that can accompany looking back on the early days of a relationship.

'I found a lot of Elliott Smith's piano songs deeply moving growing up, especially the way he'd use waltz (aka. 3/4) time to give them this dreamlike quality. After recording this track, I realised I'd subconsciously written something of that spirit.

The song is about nostalgia for the beginning of something - a partnership, a relationship, an idea - when there's this boundless excitement, resilience and belief in what it could become. As those things unfurl, they don't necessarily become any less meaningful, but they become coloured by experience.. real moments of joy, love and connection, but also hurt, obstacles and periods of detachment. Sometimes you find yourself nostalgic for that early moment when it all felt easy, free and full of possibility.'

This summer, Saleh announced the forthcoming album, and previously shared its latest single, 'Us, Forever,' a theatrical indie-pop track driven by piano, horns, a pulsing beat, and his storytelling.

'Us, Forever' is a song about the intoxicating cycle of addiction and the ways we get stuck within it,' Saleh explains. 'The familiar fireworks, once alluring and exciting, now simply explosive, or even dull. The cyclical-feeling guitar riff was originally built over a hip-hop sample - the song leans fully into that broody emotion. It took a while to sharpen the edges, with the offbeat accents creating a sense of urgency despite its contained nature.'

There is some of Death Cab for Cutie's emotional clarity and plainspoken lyricism in Saleh's songwriting, some of Ben Folds' melodic bounce and piano-minded craft, and a lot of Jens Lekman's gift for turning awkward, funny, highly specific observations into something bigger and sadder than they first appear. But Wedding Season does not play like a neatly assembled set of influences. It sounds like one songwriter following his own thoughts farther than usual and refusing to stop when the songs get messier, stranger, or more revealing than expected.

Wedding Season is a meticulously assembled record. Saleh spent years tinkering with arrangements, reworking songs and chasing sounds that could not have been captured by simply plugging in a band and playing them straight. Parts of the album began in Washington, D.C., in the basement of Bartees Strange, much of it was written and recorded in Saleh's apartment above a Brady Street bar in Milwaukee, interspersed with DIY sessions in spaces including a rural Wisconsin boat warehouse, a southern Illinois cathedral and an industrial piano repair shop.

Along the way, he became less interested in documenting songs in their simplest form than in building a record that could hold all the strange little details he wanted it to hold: room tone, overheard stories, bits of atmosphere, moments of humor, moments of panic, and the ornamental flourishes that make a song feel inhabited.

'Us, Forever' encapsulates the richly detailed world of Wedding Season, showcasing Saleh's gift for pairing deeply personal storytelling with ambitious, cinematic arrangements.

'Us, Forever' by Holy Pinto was released August 21st. Wedding Season is out September 14th.

Holy Pinto Live

9/5 - Milwaukee, WI - Vivarium

Wedding Season - Track Listing

1. Dandelion i

2. Us, Forever

3. Us, Married

4. NOLY

6. Death Is In The Air

7. She Loves You

8. One Tattoo

9. Reunited

10. Pharmacy

11. Special

12. Complaint Dept.

13. Us, Against The World

14. Mr. Writer

15. Monster

16. We're All Doomed Forever

17. Billboard

18. Dandelion ii

About Holy Pinto

Holy Pinto is the indie-pop project led by British songwriter Aymen Saleh. It began in his hometown of Canterbury, England, and is now based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Starting out in the UK with a raw, youthful punk sound, Holy Pinto gradually evolved into colorful, genre-defying indie-pop. After falling in love with life on the road - through a mix of carefree independence and serendipitous moments - Saleh eventually made Milwaukee home.

They released their debut album 'congratulations' in 2016, earning acclaim from outlets like The A.V Club and launching an extensive run of international touring. That momentum carried into 2019's coming-of-age follow-up, Adult, released shortly after Saleh settled stateside.

A shorter record titled 'Milwaukee' followed in 2020, documenting the relocation to his new adopted hometown, drawing praise from local press and national outlets including NPR, who named Holy Pinto to their coveted SXSW 'Austin 100' list.

Holy Pinto then teamed up with Bartees Strange in 2021 for the single 'us, married.' Produced by Strange, the track marked a clear expansion in sonic scope, also shaped by Saleh's pandemic-era collaborations across pop, hip-hop, and afrobeat.

That collaboration marked the beginning of a deeply self-explorative journey toward 'Wedding Season' - a meticulous, years-long labor of love and ambitious concept album set for release in fall 2026.

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