Paerish announce ambitious EP 'The Soissons Sessions' of re-imagined tracks recorded and filmed live at a stunning medieval church
Set for release 27th February 2026 via SideOneDummy
Listen to / watch 'Houses of American Style' (Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger) now
“The members of Paerish all grew up in the 90s with MTV Unplugged,” begins the band’s frontman Mathias Court, when musing on their forthcoming ‘The Soissons Sessions’ EP, which was just announced and will be released 27th February 2026 via SideOneDummy. You can listen to / watch 'Houses of American Style' (Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger) now.
Court continues on the theme of MTV Unplugged: “Those iconic sessions saw bands re-arrange their songs acoustically to offer something completely different from the rest of their discography.
For us, that idea has always been a true artistic challenge: stripping a production down to its core to keep only the writing, the emotion, and the performance. It’s a chance to rethink our songs and see how far they can go once the studio polish is removed.”
And that’s exactly what Paerish have done with their ‘The Soissons Sessions’ EP, which was recorded and filmed by the band live in the most resplendent of settings - L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger in Court’s hometown of Soissons. The release features four complete transformations of tracks from Paerish’s 2023 album ‘You’re in both dreams (and you’re scared)’. The album itself is raw and real with jagged electric guitar riffs and pummelling drum lines crashing through your speakers with both intention and abandon. The essence of the songs they’ve extracted for ‘The Soissons Sessions’ is distilled into its purest form and then carried by ethereal, folk-flecked vocals, gentle meandering acoustic guitar lines and intricate accompanying instrumentals that bring a completely different frequency and life to the tracks. Stripped down, but also fully scored, these versions breathe a completely different kind of life into the original compositions.
“The songs we chose and recorded for this live session were all originally written in Soissons during the COVID-19 period. Playing them again in the very city where they were born felt obvious — a way of closing the loop,” elaborates Court on their thinking behind the process leading up to this release. “Having grown up in Soissons, I feel a strong attachment to this city and come back often. The former Saint-Léger Abbey has always impressed me. It’s a place filled with history — majestic, almost outside of time. That’s why I suggested to the band, and then to the city, that we record this live session in a place that means so much to me.
Among the tracks we recorded, ‘Houses of American Style’ is the one that embodies this connection the most. The song speaks about childhood, growing up, and coming back to your hometown — sometimes feeling like a stranger in the very place where you began. It was written just a few steps away from the abbey, during daily walks around it. Naturally, it became the lead single from this acoustic live session, which will feature four tracks in total.
We’re a band whose recordings and touring have mostly taken place abroad, between the U.S. and Europe. That’s why it felt meaningful to film this session in an ancient French abbey — as a way to reconnect with where we come from, and turn that origin into a statement of its own.”
Paerish are about to head into the studio to record their fourth album so stay tuned for more news from the band in 2026.
‘The Soissons Sessions’ EP Tracklist:
1. Houses of American Style
(Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger)
2. Sequoia (Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger)
3. Still There
(Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger)
4. The Luck You Had
(Live at L’Ancienne Abbaye Saint-Léger)
