Isabel Munoz-Newsome’s experience of cervical cancer is well documented (you can read about it and her advice about the importance of a smear test in an interview she did with the Guardian by clicking here) but now thankfully she’s back making music. Fall Apart, the new song from her band Pumarosa, was released back in July, but it’s only today that the track has received the video treatment. It’s a big departure from the group's earlier material – sounding in places like a weird and frantic mix of David Bowie’s Little Wonder and something you might find lurking in the dark corners of an Aphex Twin album. There’s a hint of the Shirley Manson’s in the vocal delivery as well. It’s chaotic, experimental and certainly isn’t the track to push them towards the mainstream – which is a compliment not a criticism. The video is equally odd and somewhat creepy. Set in London it features the delivery of a basket and an egg by some pagan looking women to Isabel. The egg is inscribed with the words ‘Chaos is Coming’ – perhaps a reference to Brexit, the rebellion of these women into a different way of life or maybe just reflecting the sound of this song. Whatever its meaning it’s good to have the band back, taking some creative risks and not following the same formula as before.
When I first featured Pumarosa on Breaking More Waves in 2015 (when the Puma and Rosa bits still had a gap in between them), I mentioned a track called Dragonfly. “A tune that wades in atmospherics, slowly drip feeding its meticulous indie sound in a way that suggests that Puma Rosa have been doing this for some time, which of course they have,” I wrote, referring to Ada, their previous guise. Now here we are in 2017 and what goes around comes around, because Dragonfly has been unleashed into the world again and although I’m relatively sure this is a new version of the song, it still ticks all the boxes that it did before. Dragonfly is taken from Pumarosa’s forthcoming debut album which is called The Witch, a title which seems to perfectly capture the essence of their music – dark, spiritual, bleak and haunting. Other song titles on the record include Snake, Barefoot, Lions Den and of course Priestess, the brilliant debut single. The Witch will be released on the 19th May. Pumarosa - Dragonfly
This is going to be a very short post, because by now, the chances are you’ll have probably heard Honey by Pumarosa. Officially their third track to be released (discounting a couple of early demos Red and Dragonfly) Honey is full of disturbed spiralling guitars, Isabel Muñoz-Newsome’s coldly foreboding voice and a sense of hypnotic abandonment. It’s one to draw you out from swigging cider nervously in the dark corner of the indie disco to wigging out on the dancefloor, embracing it all. I put the band on my list of Ones to Watch for 2016 (here) – now with a small handful of tunes under their belts and some well received festival performances this summer – I’m beginning to wonder if they might find themselves on some more Ones to Watch lists for 2017 as well? Pumarosa - Honey
Photo credit: Hollie Fernando If you type the words Ones to Watch 2016 and Pumarosa into Google the chances are you'll come up with a whole bunch of UK based websites that had this East London quintet down as tips for this year. Breaking More Waves was among them of course; in fact in terms of bloggers bragging rights, my tip was probably the first of those year end lists - all on the back of a couple of demos I wrote about in February 2015 and the mighty 7 minute epic Priestess released last September. Whilst I've been on holiday Pumarosa have unveiled a new tune and so there was absolutely no chance of me being an annoying smug faced blogger laying a claim to being first this time. Also rather thankfully Cecile isn't a second rate copy of Priestess. The hypnotic-goth-trance sound of that previous song has been ditched for something else completely. A torrent of drums give way to an indie groove before the song relinquishes itself to the delirious power of the sax - which I'm reliably informed by others sounds a 'bit like Spear of Destiny'. Go ask your dad about them kids, and get him to listen to this at the same time. I'm confident he'll like it and after all there's nothing better to raise a smile than a bit of dad dancing. Pumarosa - Cecile
Isabel Munoz Newsome, Henry Brown, Tomoya Suzuki, Jamie Neville and Nicholas Owen are Pumarosa. And they’re one of only three groups to feature on our Ones to Watch 2016 list (the other two follow on Friday and Saturday). They first appeared on Breaking More Waves back in February but it wasn’t until September that their profile really started to develop when they dropped the trance like indie-gothic dance tune Priestess, through Chess Club records (the second time we've mentioned that label in this years' list). It’s the scope of ambition that is contained within Priestess that made us select the band. Priestess was no ordinary pop single. For a start it was 7 and a half minutes long. No radio edit. A statement of intent. Then there was the way it built hypnotically to a glorious body trembling sonic climax and yet still left the listener wanting more. It showed that it is still very possible to do something creative and exciting with indie guitar music. Add in a remix by Breaking More Waves favourite Shura who provided deeper electronic dance characteristics to the song and changed a lyric to give it a new sexiness ('come to bed'), a tour supporting Genghar, plus a slot at the London Calling festival in Amsterdam and things are looking very positive for this London based unit.
They’re due back in the studio in December to work with producer Dan Carey with a view to releasing a further single in the early part of next year. Let’s hope that they keep sight of their exciting musical vision and can take us even higher. PumaRosa - Priestess (Shura Remix)
The 7 minutes plus of bliss that is Priestess by Pumarosa has already won over the blogosphere (including us - we wrote about it here) with its heady mesmeric indie grooves and gothic swagger. Having played the song to death at Breaking More Waves HQ we had the whole visual treatment for the song already fully imagined. It was going to include a lot of swirling mists, trippy abstract patterns, epileptic fit inducing strobe lighting and just the occasional shot of the band or their instruments before they were engulfed by kaleidoscopic patterns. Alas we were wrong, but still, this interpretation (which takes the “and you dance you dance you dance” lyrics to oblivion and back) makes perfect sense as well. Still an incredible tune. Pumarosa - Priestess (Video)
Back in February we introduced a band called Puma Rosa (formerly known as Ada) to readers of Breaking More Waves. They had impressed us with a couple of demos they had on Soundcloud – the ethereal and lolloping Red and atmospheric indie of Dragonfly. At the time there seemed to be very little buzz about them. Since then it seems that things have developed quite nicely for the band, both creatively and in terms of ‘the biz’. First there’s been a minor name change – Pumarosa is now all one word rather than two and secondly they have a new song called Priestess which is being released by markers of quality, Chess Club, in the UK. It's a bit of a stonker. The first time we heard Priestess we were immediately transported back to the ‘Madchester’ scene of the late 80’s and early 90’s.Not because the song sounds particularly like anything out of that era – if anything there’s a slightly gothic undertone to the track, but in the way that it develops that same sense of hypnosis by a throbbing groove that bands like the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses owned. It’s the musical equivalent of wonderfully dark layered narcotic hedonism and yes, it is bloody marvellous. If anything its seven minutes simply isn’t enough. Pumarosa - Priestess
