Ju ne, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 43Pumarosa
SOUNDS LIKE: Playing music in
heritage buildings where dark
memories lurk in the walls
FOR FANS OF: Arcade Fire, Patti
Smith, PJ Harvey
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTEN-
TION: Carved into a cliff on the
coast of Calabria is a cinema that
creaks with age. Rendered in the
1930s, it’s seemingly suspended
in air by the sweeping Mediter-
ranean landscape, and there’s a
straight drop from the veranda
to the ocean. Pumarosa’s debut
album, The Witch, is impressed
with elements of that space, a
pivotal point in the creation of
the record. Self-described as “in-dustrial spiritual”, the fi ve-piece
took their music from a small,
“mashed up” studio in East Lon-
don to a residency in the south
of Italy, where their neo-rock-
meets-instrumental sound was
brushed with a haunting, old-
world feel. Frontwoman Isabel
Muñoz-Newsome and drummer
Nick Owen noticed that shift.
“We took stuff we’d already
written in our little room, and it
didn’t sound right,” Owen says.
“It was a huge space, acoustically
treated, and more expansive. It
was clearer and less compressed- it gave the sound a chance to
go out.”
Lessons from the cinema
are heard in the album. In “The
Witch”, Owen’s drumming
is precise but surges gently,
favouring brushes over sticks; in
“Dragonfl y”, Muñoz-Newsome’s
vocals echo and grate; and in
“Barefoot” a synth ebbs and
fl ows over sparse guitar picking.
The lyrics, too, have shadowy
corners. Muñoz-Newsome says
“the witch, thematically, is kind
of the centre point – I’m trying to
put women in the position of a
protagonist. I think that’s missing
from culture – books or fi lms
or songs where the woman is
the instigator, it’s sort of... notthere.” The Witch is at once raw
and unfettered, but fi nely tuned.
Its live sound thrives under quiet
restraint.
THEY SAY: Muñoz-Newsome
says, “Music isn’t gonna cause a
revolution, but you can speak in a
way that isn’t utterly mainstream.
I’m not running around being an
anarchist, although I wish I had
the balls to do that. If you’re an
artist or a musician, that’s your
space. It’s a diff erent voice.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF: “Priest-
ess” is striking in its simplicity,
while “The Witch” surges through
diverse terrains, musically and
lyrically. LUCY SHANAHAN