Fans of Pumarosa are overjoyed for the release their sophomore album ‘Devastation’. Pursuing a sound they call “industrial spiritual”, the London based band have forgone the guitar centric style of their previous work and instead taken a truly soulful approach to electronica. The bold experimentation certainly works, thanks in part to St Vincent producer John Congleton with whom they recorded with in LA plus Tool bassist Justin Chancellor.
Grab your copy of ‘Devastation’ on CD, MP3 and orange 180g heavyweight vinyl right now. Plus, Pumarosa have announced a major gig at Bristol’s Thekla taking place on Monday 25th of November 2019.
Taken from their forthcoming second album, the John Congleton-produced ‘Devastation’, due out November 8th via Fiction Records, Pumarosa have released new cut, ‘I See You’.
“The song is about having the confidence to look back into the face of the guy who is talking you down, or taking your space, and saying “I see you!” I’m not going to be silent or make myself small so that you can feel ok. It’s not ok! And it can be fun!” explauns frontwoman Isabel Muñoz-Newsome.
“There is a swagger to enjoying power, And it can be fun! Theres is a swagger to enjoying power, and you can feel that in the verses of the track. and you can feel that in the verses of the track. The lyrics to ‘I See You’ ware inspired by the experience of me and my girlfriends. And also by the #MeToo movement.”
One seven-minute, epic song about freedom and dancing set to propulsive bass, spaced-out guitar, more than a hint of dance music, saxophone and hypnotic vocals. Signed to Chess Club Records, the East London five-piece led by singer and guitarist, Isabel Munoz-Newsome, the band released their debut single “Priestess” in September 2017, and we’ve been unable to stop listening since.
We made this together for the track My Gruesome Loving Friend. It was a day spent with our phones and each other. Thanks so much to Kitty who came with us, and who is actually the original Gruesome Loving Friend who I’m singing about.
The band follow in-kind with adventurous jams, almost like finding each other for the first time before locking into a groove that morphs the song into a sort of dance-rock track that’s a million times more appealing than that description.
Pumarosa have been together for just over a year, developing from the core of Munoz-Newsome and drummer, Nicholas Owen, to the five-piece who released “Priestess”. Munoz-Newsome explains the origins of the band: “We’d been playing together for quite a few years doing different projects and sort of coming in and out of playing with each other. The last band we did together ended, and I started writing stuff on my own. I thought I would get a band to play with me.
“At the beginning it was like folk music and then it became really electro, and then it became really heavy rock, and now it is what it is now!” The pieces of the band then started fitting into place: “We found Henry [Brown], who plays bass, then Tomoya [Suzuki] who plays saxophone and keys, and the last one to join was Neville [James] who plays guitar.”
One seven-minute, epic song about freedom and dancing set to propulsive bass, spaced-out guitar, more than a hint of dance music, saxophone and hypnotic vocals.
Now signed to Chess Club Records, the East London five-piece led by singer and guitarist, Isabel Munoz–Newsome, released their debut single “Priestess” last september , and we’ve been unable to stop listening since. The song has hints of Woman’s Hour in its fragile opening moments, but transforms once Munoz-Newsome starts her chanting vocals. The band follow in-kind with adventurous jams, almost like finding each other for the first time before locking into a groove that morphs the song into a sort of dance-rock track that’s a million times more appealing than that description.
Pumarosa have been together for just over a year, developing from the core of Munoz-Newsome and drummer, Nicholas Owen, to the five-piece who released “Priestess”. Munoz-Newsome explains the origins of the band: “We’d been playing together for quite a few years doing different projects and sort of coming in and out of playing with each other. The last band we did together ended, and I started writing stuff on my own. I thought I would get a band to play with me… and then the band became bigger than that!”
Before Pumarosa took shape, Munoz-Newsome had some developing of her own to do as a song writer and musician: “At the beginning it was like folk music and then it became really electro, and then it became really heavy rock, and now it is what it is now!” The pieces of the band then started fitting into place: “We found Henry [Brown], who plays bass, then Tomoya [Suzuki] who plays saxophone and keys, and the last one to join was Neville [James] who plays guitar.”
Despite the varying styles as she found her feet, she never regarded any choice she made as being a calculated decision: “I think everything happened organically. I never thought, ‘Well now I’m going to get into this genre.’ When I was on my own and writing, I was just playing piano and guitar, there was a lot of that sort of folky music around at that point. So it seemed natural to play that. And it’s very much about songs, and I was trying to write songs rather than jams at that point.”
Her surroundings and the people she had around her influenced direction. “As different people come in then they bring their own influences, so it shifts,” she says. “There was a period where we were rehearsing in Palma Violets’ studio, and while we were there the music got really rocky! And that’s just because that was what was in the walls – they’d go in and play their sweaty rock and it’d rub off on us!”
“Priestess” feels like a song written by a band, and a fully-formed one at that. It’s how the song develops that’s most impressive. From a nascent, nebulous jam, to something forceful, direct and danceable by the end, it’s got a narrative that’s easy to trace, and that’s even without Munoz-Newsome’s sharp and emotive lyrics and imagery. “Some stuff we write totally together and it comes out of us jamming,” explains the singer. “But most of it still comes from me writing on my own, and I need to write on my own. I don’t really want to write with other people. I rely on those guys to arrange the song, though, because I don’t know how to write a guitar solo, or drums…which I find completely mysterious!” This is where long-time musical partner Owen comes into his own: “I’ll love it, I can tell when it clicks and I know when it’s exciting, but Nick is so good. When he does something on a song I’ve written it can completely revolutionise it. It’s wonderful playing with those guys.”
“Being in London, being an artist, you’re trying to tap into certain things or be open to certain things but at the same time you’re working within a big city”
You can hear the rumble and movement of the city in “Priestess”; the bass acts as some kind of anchor, a suggestion of bricks and mortar and place holding the track together, while Munoz-Newsome’s vocals, the saxophone and the jam element hint at the movement of people in and out of the city and its boroughs. “Freedom” is sung about and it feels like the theme of movement is wider than simply about a dancer…who happens to be Munoz-Newsome’s sister Fernanda.
Pumarosa’s Isabel Munoz-Newsome, Nick Owen and Jamie Neville sit down to discuss their relief at Aussie road food and how they don’t do things “bite-sized”.
“Getting a little bit overwhelmed is good,” says Isabel Munoz-Newsome, singer/guitarist of London quintet Pumarosa. She’s talking about being on stage, and those moments where things either go wrong or oh so right, and she’s lost in her band’s spectral, psychedelic alt-rock. “I had this really bad jetlag yesterday; this weird feeling like I was in an elevator, like blood was rushing up and down my body. And sometimes, when I dance [on stage], I just spin and spin and spin. And, playing last night, I thought: ‘I really shouldn’t do this, I’m dizzy already.’ But I did it anyway, and I was staggering around. I enjoyed – for a moment – not being in control.”
The day after playing a sold-out show in Melbourne, Pumarosa – Munoz-Newsome, drummer Nick Owen, guitarist Jamie Neville, bassist Henry Brown, keyboardist/saxophonist Tomoya Suzuki . In the studio space, strewn with spotlights, reflectors, and drop-sheets, the outside world is far away. But the highlight of their first Australian tour has been time spent in the outdoors; stepping off an overnight flight and heading for a swim at Coogee Bay.
“It’s been really wonderful,” admits Owen. “Because on a rainy day in North America, where you’re only stopping at service stations, and the only food you can find is totally processed, touring is pretty bleak.”
Pumarosa’s first Australian tour has been a particular tonic for Neville, who, like so many Englishmen before him, came out here as an 18-year-old on a gap year. He ended up collecting money door-to-door in the far-flung Sydney suburbs for “a really fucked up company, just the worst people”. “So,” Neville says, “it’s been so nice coming back, because last time I was here I was just really depressed.”
Suzuki, the band’s “natural adventurer”, is keen to see whatever he can. He’s got a million stories: working in a nature reserve in the Ecuadorian rainforest at 19 (“tracking monkeys for scientists and studying orchids”). Showing up at a UK festival with a “saxophone and a passport”, leading to an odyssey of hitching throughout Europe, from Barcelona to a “psy-trance” rave outside of Budapest. Spontaneously leaving a Romanian festival to travel for two months with “11 crusty hippies” through former Yugoslavia down into Turkey, and driving around Morocco for months “picking up hitch-hikers”.
“Because Australia is such a beautiful place, you must have this next-level colonial guilt; like you’re living in a stolen paradise.”
The band are engaging conversationalists, equally capable of talking about Brexit or Australian colonial identity, “Because Australia is such a beautiful place,” Neville thinks, “you must have this next-level colonial guilt; like you’re living in a stolen paradise.” They touch on the migration of populations to cities and of daily life to social media. They broach Sydney lockout laws: “When you’re touring,” says Suzuki, “what stands out the most are these strange little regulations you have in different places; like, I was so confused by all the rules in Sydney about drinking.” When it comes to talking about their band, though, Pumarosa can find it hard to find the right words.
“When you’re in band – performing music that you’ve made, words that you’ve written – everything feels so on the line. Every word I sing, every gesture I make, it’s all me,” says Munoz-Newsome. “But, just like it can be hard to describe yourself to people, it can be hard to describe your band. I find doing the social media really hard because it’s so self-conscious and self-referential. And for me, the moment of being creative is the opposite of that. When something is coming out, is being imagined, it’s very personal and very pure. [Once] the label asked me if I could take photos or make a video of me working on the album artwork. And I was like, ‘No! No way! I really can’t do that!’ The act of making art, being honest in that moment, that’s quite frightening and quite sacred. To have that just be, like, Snapchatted, it’s just wrong.”
“Making music,” says Neville, “you’re in the middle of a process that is completely freeing. We often have this collective, unspoken idea that we all just instinctively understand, and it will reveal itself to you as you’re doing it… We all just come together, in the one room – there’s no writing on a computer, building things or swapping files – and smash our ideas together, force something out of it. It’s very tactile.”
“We’re reacting to sounds, following them, as much as ideas,” Owen offers. “Like Sonic Youth, I think we’re often working with the energy of the guitar.”
“I think we have a Sonic Youth-esque mentality: make pop music, but do it with a kind of anarchic tonality,” Neville furthers. “I would definitely define it as pop music: we’re not avant-garde, we make songs. But, within that, there’s lots of different perceptions. Some people might just look at us as straight pop, someone else would think our songs are all too long and difficult.”
“I think the fact that our songs are very long, and the words are quite dense, is a kind of response against that [digital] climate,” says Munoz-Newsome. “We’re not providing that instantaneous, bite-sized content. We’d hope people would be happy that we’re offering something that exists outside of that.”
Growing up Munoz-Newsome never saw herself being in this position. Not just as the face of a budding buzz-band, but even making music. “I wasn’t writing songs when I was a kid,” she says. “I didn’t want to be in a band at all. It never even occurred to me. And then it just happened.”
“I think we have a Sonic Youth-esque mentality: make pop music, but do it with a kind of anarchic tonality.”
Of course, Pumarosa didn’t just happen. After studying visual art and painting and thinking that she’d find work as a scenographer, Munoz-Newsome was drawn onto the stage, first as a participant in performance art works. She began writing her first songs eight years ago, and spent years working on them, first just with Owen, then with the band as they slowly came together. Their debut single Priestess finally came out in 2015, and now their debut LP The Witchis here.
The album strings the band’s long songs – none are less than four minutes, four are more than six – together; moving from the “very subdued” opener Dragonfly through to the “really mental, high energy” closer Snake. “Moving from this cinematic opener, that sets the mood, then building up towards this crazy, psychedelic-Hare Krishna climax,” Munoz-Newsome says, “it feels like a journey, more than a set of songs maximising their position for streaming services. We liked the way that felt. But maybe that’s a bad idea, marketing-wise.”
“Finishing an album,” says Owen, “you’ve planted a flag, marked out this territory. After years of work you can finally say: this is a finished work, this represents us.”
As to just how it represents them, Pumarosa still aren’t sure. “We all have particularly different viewpoints, and there can be conflict in that,” says Suzuki. “I like that. If everyone agreed, it would just feel too safe. We’re not a single genre idea or a singular sound. You can listen to techno, or folk music from Africa, and connect those ideas, and draw influence from anywhere along that line. Everything is on the table.”
“Anything goes,” says Munoz-Newsome, “as long as you do it wholeheartedly. The worst thing you can do is fake it.”
It’s two years since Psych pop band Pumarosa formed, but you’d be forgiven for thinking they hadn’t spent a day apart. Razor-sharp and accomplished, they play like they’ve rehearsed for years without pause. Isabel and Nicholas started the band by chance. A friend was eager to start a new music project and invited the two to come and play, but said friend never showed up. Instead, the pair were left to lay the foundations of what would become Pumarosa. When an album lands, it’s set to encompass the journey Pumarosa have taken so far. From stuffy practice rooms to disused cinemas, right through to every stage they’ve graced in the past year, there’s been a learning process, and that will in part inform an eventual full-length. These songs have always been alive, in a way. Instead of being written, recorded and put to bed, they’ve re-developed, changing in scope as the band have progressed. The album encompasses the journey Pumarosa have taken so far. It sounds like PJ Harvey or Patti Smith together with the groove-led and nocturnal electronics of The Knife and Cocteau Twins.
2LP – Double heavyweight black vinyl, Gatefold, inner bags and download code.
2LP+ – Rough Trade Shop and Band Exclusive. Double heavyweight red translucent vinyl, Gatefold, inner bags and download code. 500 Copies only.
Pumarosa have announced a UK tour as well as a string of European dates. The tour starts in April and will likely showcase the slightly odd group at their fullest.
Visiting cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow they will also play their largest show in London to date at the ever wonderful Oval Space in Hackney.
With tour dates and more impressively working with the enigmatic and man with the midas touch; producer Dan Carey on their debut album we think 2017 might be a good year for Pumarosa.
And so after about one minute of the track “Honey” by Pumarosa I was checking to see what the nearest date was to Nottingham so I could get the chance to see them live again.
“Honey” is brilliant. It’s pretty much everything I like wrapped up into five minutes, slow-building, brooding and commanding track that shimmers, soars and thrills in equal measures amongst tight guitars and captivating vocals
Philadelphia’s Nothing return with ‘Tired Of Tomorrow’, their beautifully profound follow-up to 2014’s widely-acclaimed ‘Guilty Of Everything’. Recorded over the course of a month at Studio 4 with Will Yip (Circa Survive, Title Fight), ‘Tired Of Tomorrow’ is a modern, nihilistic take on the triumphant fuzzed-out guitar rock of the 90’s, replete with huge hooks and brooding melodies. Much like the events it’s based on, the album displays an unparalleled balance of opposites and contradictions, rife with sweet-and-sour themes, downcast grooves, infectious choruses, and blissfully expansive washes of sound. With ‘Tired Of Tomorrow’, Nothing have worked the deepest influences of their youth and maturation into a confident, memorable album that is sure to soothe old wounds while simultaneously opening up new ones. Recommended if you like: Smashing Pumpkins, Ceremony, Merchandise, My Bloody Valentine, Diiv and Radiohead.
LP – Rough Trade Exclusive – 300 Copies on Grey Vinyl with Download.
LP+ – Standard Black Vinyl with Download.
YAK – ALAS SALVATION
Just over a year since their first single ‘Hungry Heart’ was released – a period that saw their unpredictable gigs and electrifying clutch of studio recordings earn them a reputation as the most exciting and talked about new act in the UK – Yak have channelled their ferocious live experience into their debut album ‘Alas Salvation’. Recorded with Pulp’s Steve Mackey, it’s a wired and ambitious record that refuses to be pigeonholed. Yet beneath all the head-spinning chaos lies a beating heart of great melodicism and a hyperactively eclectic and inventive approach to making.
EAGULLS – ULLAGES
Rough Trade exclusive with a Zine – Procrastination Compilation George Mitchell – Limited to just 500 Copies. Releasing their much-acclaimed self-titled debut-album in 2014, the following 12 months saw the fiercely independent Leeds-based band go from strength to strength. Highlights of the year included taking both Later… With Jools Holland and The Late Show With David Letterman in the U.S. by storm, sharing the stage with the likes of Arcade Fire and Pharrell while scooping a major prize at the NME Awards and playing across the globe at some of the world’s most renowned festivals including Coachella, Latitude, Field Day and Reading / Leeds. Retreating to their rehearsal space to begin work on their second album, ‘Ullages’ (an anagram of the band’s name) gradually took shape over long days and nights in the converted Catholic Church in Leeds. Intent on breaking new ground, drawing out the textured melodies that lay discreetly amongst the speed, intensity and heady fuzz of their debut and creating an altogether different record, ‘Ullages’ is a near perfect distillation of their agenda; a record that recalls the shimmering opulence of the Cocteau Twins and the melancholic majesty of Disintegration / Pornography-era The Cure.
LP – Black Vinyl with Download.
LP+ – Limited Green vinyl with Download. 500 Copies only for the UK.
JOHN DOE – THE WESTERNER
John Doe is a founding member of the seminal L.A. punk rock band X and the country spin-off band The Knitters. The album features ten new tracks from Doe with guest appearances from Chan Marshall of Cat Power, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Cindy Wasserman of Dead Rock West and Tom Brosseau. ‘The Westerner‘ was produced by Howe Gelb (Neko Case, M. Ward), Dave Way (Fiona Apple) and Doe. The album’s artwork was designed by Shepard Fairey and Aaron Huey to support Native American rights via a campaign called Protect The Sacred, with additional photography by Jim Herrington.
LP – With Download.
RED HOUSE PAINTERS – OLD RAMON
Released almost concurrently with head Red House Painter Mark Kozelek’s solo venture ‘What’s Next to theMoon’ (a selection of deconstructed AC/DC covers), ‘Old Ramon’ allows the rare opportunity to hear an artist both then and now. Recorded in 1997, ‘Old Ramon’ languished in the limbo of label fallout, finally to be rescued and released by Sub Pop in 2001. Meanwhile, though, it seemed Kozelek had moved on, releasing a flurry of projects with nary a look back, making ‘Old Ramon’ almost seem like an afterthought. But what a lovely afterthought it is. The trademark features of the Red House Painters are all here: the songs are long and meandering, the guitars seesaw languidly, the drums plod, dissonant harmonies moan and Kozelek’s olive-oil voice seeps around everything. The best tracks include the light and airy ‘Wop a Din-Din’, an homage to Kozelek’s cat; the dark and beastly ‘Byrd Joe’ and the understated ‘Cruiser’.
LP+ – Limited Double Vinyl with Download.
PUMAROSA – CECILE
Limited beautiful White Vinyl 12″ with Download. London five-piece, Pumarosa are a band who assembled from unexpected and varied quarters. Isabel met drummer Nick at a rehearsal for a new band in a rundown Homerton pub and when no one else showed up the pair formed a guitar-and-drums Punk duo and began writing and rehearsing in the basement. After moving to a warehouse in Manor House, they met Henry, Tomoya and Neville and began a period of intensely hot rehearsal in a 10′ x 10′ chipboard room. In the summer of 2015, the band was offered a residency in the cavernous disused cinema of an Italian surrealist, situated within the cliffs of Calabria. Scraping together a van and driving non-stop to Italy, the band worked on new material in beguiling forty degree heat, developing further their expansive sound. It was also in Italy that they settled on the name Pumarosa: in part reflecting Isabel’s Chilean roots, but also the lurid-looking jungle fruit of the same name. In September 2015 Pumarosa released debut single “Priestess’, produced by Mercury-nominated Dan Carey (Kate Tempest, Bat For Lashes, Toy) via Chess Club / Mom + Pop (US). Zane Lowe on Beats 1 had the world’s first play and within three days ‘Priestess’ was the second most blogged about song worldwide.
THE BIG MOON – CUPID
Limited 7″ only. The Big Moon release a new single ‘Cupid’, their first through Fiction Records. It was produced and mixed by Catherine Marks (Foals / Wolf Alice), and follows their two acclaimed singles to date, ‘Sucker’ and ‘The Road’. It has been an exciting introductory year for Juliette, Fern, Soph and Celia of The BigMoon. Releasing their first recordings to widespread acclaim in 2015, the band have been busy selling out their shows across the UK, and performing to expansive audiences on high-profile support tours with the likes of The Vaccines, Ezra Furman and their new label mates The Maccabees. The band return with another bullet of a track that heightens their already sky-high appeal. ‘Cupid’ is everything that The Big Moon have already promised and more. A track full of punch, verve and a knowing swagger, capped by vocalist Juliette Jackson’s wry snarl of a delivery, and her bandmates pin-sharp harmonies. It’s a smart and confident next step forward.
BRYDE – EP1
Exciting new London solo-artist Bryde releases her debut EP, simply entitled ‘EP1’ via Seahorse Music. The release contains previous singles ‘Wait’ and ‘Help Yourself’ alongside two brand new tracks (‘Nectar’ and ‘To BeLoved’) which have already been making an impact at her live shows around the country. Earning comparisons to the Sharon Van Etten, PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley and London Grammar, her powerful vocals, sharp, evocative lyricism and searing guitar tones have won plaudits from the likes of NYLON, The 405 and The Line Of Best Fit, with the latter declaring Bryde’s heady concoction as “tearjerk folk-pop”. Limited to 500 copies on transparent light blue vinyl.
CAT’S EYES – TREASURE HOUSE
If Cat’s Eyes self-titled debut was grown in the dark, then ‘Treasure House’, their second, is born in light. If the nocturnal interiors of Cat’s Eyes were a cult flick viewed in smudgy black and white on cathode ray, then ‘TreasureHouse’ takes everything into the great outdoors and shoots it in Technicolor on wide silver-screen; an old school blockbuster, of the kind they no longer make. This is the third album by Rachel Zeffira and FarisBadwan, previous albums include Cat’s Eyes self-titled 2011 debut and last year’s European Film Award awarding wining soundtrack to Peter Strickland’s film, ‘The Duke of Burgundy’.
ULTIMATE PAINTING – LIVE AT THIRD MAN RECORDS
Ultimate Painting is a young, yet already distinguished UK duo comprised of Jack Cooper and James Hoare. As the story goes, these two spent time touring together with Cooper’s band, Mazes, supporting Hoare’s band, Veronica Falls. A fateful friendship developed and, to make it quick, demos were recorded and swapped, which all eventually led to their debut seeing release on Trouble In Mind. The project has been so thoroughly adored for its uncomplicated, beautifully calm approach to VU-style riff-making and loose-but-biting vibes that the follow up, ‘Green Lanes’, was released a mere ten months later. Needless to say Third Man Records are so glad they carved their way through the great land of Nashville, TN. Recorded direct-to-tape, ‘Live at Third Man Records’ is an impeccable document of English rock ‘n’ roll. The band is in top form here and their set consists of the finest material from the band’s first and second albums, ‘Ultimate Painting’ and ‘Green Lanes’ respectively, with a handful of extended jams featured here. This live record is a must own for fans of the band, not to mention anyone smitten with mellow guitar magic that absolutely explodes into some true, stately mayhem.
DEATH AND VANILLA – DEATH AND VANILLA EP
12″ Blue Vinyl EP / CD digipack. The first release for the Swedish Psychedelic dream-pop band, their self-titled EP caught the attention of French label ‘Hands In The Dark’. They originally released EP in 2010 on CD an extremely limited edition run of 100 copies. The EP will be reissued on blue vinyl to match the cover alongside the ‘FromAbove’ 7″ and their self-titled debut long player.
CLINIC – INTERNATIONAL WRANGLER Reissue
Clinic’s long-awaited debut album Internal Wrangler fleshes out the sound the group crafted on their self-released EPs, and it also adds a few new twists. Though eerie, punk-tinged songs like “The Return of Evil Bill” and the title track sound like they could have appeared on the band’s first singles, Internal Wrangler’s best songs concentrate on the experimental yet accessible sides of Clinic’s sound. “The Second Line”‘s darkly catchy throb, the aptly named “2nd Foot Stomp”‘s organ-driven pulse, and “Voodoo Wop”‘s blend of surf and Krautrock are a logical progression from Clinic’s roots, but ballads like the “Pale Blue Eyes”-esque “Distortions” and the late-night calm of “Goodnight Georgie” are a leap into new territory for the band. Though some of the thrashier songs like “C.Q.” and “T.K.” and a bottom-heavy song sequence detract from the album’s flow, Internal Wrangler is still a strong debut from one of England’s most promising and distinctive indie bands.
CLINIC – WALKING WITH THEE Reissue
Right down to its gritty, mod-punk art direction, Walking With Thee seems like it should fit right in with Clinic’s previous work. Indeed, the group’s second full-length album could’ve been a carbon copy of their debut, InternalWrangler, but to Clinic’s credit, the band makes a few changes, opting for a smoother production and a quieter, more implosive sound than their previous work offered. Frustratingly, though, most of these changes end up detracting from the group’s strengths and diluting the album’s impact. Walking With Thee’s production is far from slick, but a huge part of Clinic’s appeal was that the band seemed to record in an underwater garage, giving their songs a fuzzy, cavernous sound that made their messy, thrashy moments even more dangerously alluring and their ballads that much more affecting. Stripped nearly bare of reverb and static, much of Walking With Thee sounds incomplete, particularly on the almost-punk of “Pet Eunuch,” “Welcome,” and “The Equaliser,” which, with its rattling percussion and driving bassline, could’ve rivaled Internal Wrangler’s ugly-beautiful intensity if had a little more oomph. However, the album isn’t a total washout — for every lackluster moment, there’s one that connects. “The Vulture” and “Walking With Thee” nearly reach the frenzied, strangely sexy, bottom-dwelling heights (depths?) of Clinic’s best work. And beginning with the chilly, hypnotic opener, “Harmony,” many of the album’s quietest moments are the most compelling. Filmic tracks like “Come Into Our Room” and the dreamy finale “For the Wars” follow suit, though their brooding, stark sound will only strengthen the Radiohead comparisons. There’s a lot of promise on Walking With Thee, but nothing here touches the deadpan cool of Internal Wrangler’s “The Second Line,” the detached poignancy of “Distortion,” or the raw energy of “Second Foot Stomp.” The band sounds like they’re still figuring out how to make the urgency of their previous work jell with a more polished, experimental sound, which makes Walking With Thee not so much a progression or regression as a step sideways. Clinic is still one of the most intriguing acts around, and while this isn’t the masterpiece the band has the potential to deliver, an interesting disappointment from them is still better than a successful but boring album from a less-inspired group.
The band are one of those who have taken the attention of the music world recently with tracks ‘Priestess’ and ‘Cecile’ and could be seen having a side of stage huddle before they went on. An enchanting set that featured the two tracks, as well as ‘Lions Den’ which provided proof they gave other hits in their locker, left the hundreds of people in attendance dancing as Isabel Munoz-Newsome repeatedly chanted “Priestess, you dance, you dance, youdance”. A moment you can foresee happening with thousands in the near future.
Film by Holly Hunter in collaboration with Isabel Munoz-Newsome, performance and choreography by Fernanda Munoz-Newsome, styled by Minnie Casey, special thanks to Jack Jubb and Joe Winter.
On their video for last years impressive single “Priestess” London newies Pumarosa set out their stall perfectly: Classy visuals clashed with cascading melodies. When I caught them live around the same time it reminded me of seeing Jungle early on – hefty beats, a stage shrouded in smoke and a lot of nascent ambition to try and create something otherworldly for the audience.
The follow-up video for ballsy latest track ‘Cecile’ just dropped and it adds more to their burgeoning story, with a touch of lysergic influence seeping in as the band dance gently around a dank looking London tower block. Singer Isabel Munoz-Newsome has shades of Savages’ Jehnny Beth in her delivery, but there’s also an eerie quality to her vocals, like she’s listened to a lot of Kate Bush but only really taken onboard the most bullish moments.
Pumarosa headline the ICA in London on May 7th. Here’s the newly unleashed video for ‘Cecile’, directed by Rebecca Salvadori:
The Fat Angel Sings 