Thursday, June 12, 2008

PERPETUAL NOR' WESTER

Pumice - Fort

Pumice - Thermos in the Studio

Pumice - Dogwater

Pumice is a man called Stefan Geoffrey Neville and he is the most lo-fi band in Northland. I've lived in New Zealand most of my life but I still don't know where the F Northland is; it's probably in the North Island and it's probably real rural and grassy and small and there are probably lots of flax bushes and those weird New Zealand non-palm trees and grey beaches there so that Pumice can hide a studio shack out there somewhere and fill it with a shit tonne of different instruments, all broken in different ways. On his new album Quo, Pumice's melancholy fits into New Zealand mythologies, he's the harsh white light that is strained through clouds as winter nears, but for all his downer tones and muffled sentiments, he's sounding happier, in parts, at least; 'Fort' is in the Siltbreeze school of scuzz, hiding a pop shine behind murk and garbage, but not just the usual sort; there's something about that junk that sounds particlularly Pumicey. For some reason this week it seems like every press release or album synopsis of albums that sound remotely shitty brings up the whole Flying-Nun-pop-song-falling-apart sort of vibe but I suspect the best thing about Pumice's take on pop is that the songs are together and it's just the instruments that are falling apart.

[Pumice MySpace]

[Pumice's favourite albums on Rose Quartz last year]

[Buy Quo from Soft Abuse]

7 comments:

RICHARD M said...

don't worry
found it
god the last couple weeks has been good for leaks

RICHARD said...

yeah you'll dig this richard marks

fk this must confuse so many ppl

it looks like im commenting on my own blog lolol

sjg said...

bro northland is not only a region in the north island but it is also this really mediocre suburb in wellington which has dominoes, pizza hut and hells pizza all next to one another.

RICHARD said...

northland is also a mall in christchurch!!!

RICHARD said...

guess which richard that was? oh, me

Anonymous said...

you see this?

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/06/mudboy-and-pumi.html

Anonymous said...

i mean... this