It Hurts on Soft Abuse Records

Stefan Neville of Pumice wrangled this latest single from It Hurts for Soft Abuse which embraces the same rejected traditional recording methods he's been exploring since the early '90s. The three ladies of It Hurts aren't strangers to musical creation though and have played in numerous bands over the years in New Zealand probably crossing paths with Stefan which led to this single from Minneapolis's equivalent to Flying Nun: Soft Abuse.

A-Side's "33 Tears" reminds me of the damaged home recorded sounds of Grouper; thumping room bounced kicks, impossibly echo'd vocals and a bellowing synth or actual horn instrument. The capture of a repeated unintelligible vocal in a psychedelic seance in the middle of the night. They weren't even sure what was going to happen next and an epic dark monster came shedding it's hairy skin. No one was planning necessarily on this horror sound, but the trance has begun, there's no stopping this momentum channeling something folky and ancient like those kids from The Land Of Blood and Sunshine, or close to Racoo-oo-oon and Pocahaunted's improvised drone. (I always think I'm missing something in Best Coast because of that project with Amanda of NNF.) Anyone that started out in those hopeless sounding nefarious loops for what must have been discerning audiences has my vote. It Hurts is working in that similar weird contemporary ambience that doesn't have anything to do with electronics just a state of altered mind without directly referencing psych either.

B-Side's "Earth, Sun, Moon, Us" has a creepy whispered theremin or Moog that whooooOOPSS around their space. You can hear the literal room they played this live as another instrument, the rest are separated into channels where left speaker takes a turn into eccentric sci-fi. The rhythm picks up, a tribal stompy metronome hammering this riff over and over. You're listening for the number of times you thought it changed. Battering vocals that pile up on all three members contributing to this in a weird choir of voices, a Grass Widow cabal. Distorted of course, like a Blanche Blanche Blanche Halloween night looking to get more complex and explore a haze of late night ear splitting repetition. Inca Ore, Clipd Beaks, Heavy Winged... here's our new friend, It Hurts.

What the hell is happening on that cover? Butterfly wings, oysters, silver dentures? Lots more dental jewelry to be found on their facebook page.

Pick this up from Soft Abuse Records.

Olympus - Bold Mould on Soft Abuse

Been working on a mammoth review of this full length from Olympus on Soft Abuse.

A collaboration between Stephen from Pumice and Kraus from The Aesthetics.

Pumice on Doubtful Sounds

Just got to a 10" record from Doubtful Sounds via Soft Abuse...a pretty amazing EP release, 3 tracks housed in a heavy screened graphic sleeve from Pumice.

Check it out in the Forums section.

Interview with Mike from PIAPTK coming soon...

Pumice 'Magnedisk Recordings Of gFrenzy Songs' on Dirty Knobby

I was introduced to this guy way too late, I'd keep seeing his stuff pop up here and there, releases, I just never took the time/money to investigate further, and I've definitely missed out. I love the crazy every sound is valid style bedroom recording. It takes a lot for someone like this to succeed in their own room, maybe record some cassettes, but to take this out on a stage can be impossible. He's seemed to have successfully pulled that off and to be able to straddle both of those areas is a feat definitely. One I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to witness unfortunately. I don't think he's ever actually toured here, but I'm probably wrong.
This single is a perfect example of the lengths he's going in recording....check out a sample on Dirty's myspace. This Magnedisk device is insane, I can't find that much info anywhere online, but it sure makes Pumice sound like a warbly nightmare...he really takes advantage of this insane format to then transpose it to another obsolete format. I have to respect someone that can create something you'll never hear anyone else attempt. Let alone I know nothing about gFrenzy...probably someone else that's going to take another seven inch to get me to look into. For God's sake I just won my first R. Stevie Moore single on ebay. Some things inexplicably pass me by.

I like Doug's take on it, even die hard low-fi disciples are going to have to prepare themselves for the sound of this mess.

Get it from dirty knobby, who I also respect for pressing this for maniacs like me.
Thank you.

Pumice
Magnedisk Recordings Of gFrenzy Songs
PS, US Bleedin' gorgeous! PUMICE covers 4 songs by NZ genius recluse GFRENZY, & the results will make you want to throw all yr other records out the window. Seriously unique & utterly gleeful warble-fi gems. Stefan says, "It's a pretty rugged record. 4 gFrenzy songs, I recorded it on this weird dictation machine from the 1940s. The speed is inconsistent so it sounds wobbly too. All live all mono. Hope you like it." LIMITED TO 500

Pumice - Persever 7" on Soft Abuse Records

I knew I've heard of Pumice before...I looked up an old post....ok, This is Stephan Neville from New Zealand with the low-fi 4 track stuff...this got me thinking, I need to reexamine that categorization. You can't just throw that around anymore. 4-track doesn't mean it was recorded to a cassette and bounced down a million times, with that inherent hiss and hands on craft. It's hilarious to even think there was a dolby noise reduction setting on the Tascam...it was always on, but I could never hear any change. So most likely it's recorded on a computer, with some kind of mixer software, but anything with the word laptop in it just makes me think about some kind of electronic, minimal, rave, DJ world. So it's home recorded. Experimental? In the way that he's using sounds in unconventional ways. So what's going on? Is this low-fi? Yes...at times. And that's going around lately don't get me wrong, it might be a red flag to some readers. It's practically required these days, and not even out of necessity, purely for texture, to maybe take itself a little less seriously? Things recorded too perfectly, lose the human element? All of this is at work on this new single from Pumice on Soft Abuse.

Pumice has been around since '91 but has been on a bit of a hiatus the past few years, but is back with this new original and a couple of covers on the B-Side.
To me this single, the A-Side, 'The dawn chorus of kina' is reminding me of The Microphones, and Mt Eerie stuff, intensely personal, idiosyncratic visions of making music. This track runs through all kinds of emotional landscapes from repetitive beat with layers of muddy guitars bleeding into one solid hazy melody that later breaks down into jagged angular strums, and then gets real quiet bringing the first melody back with a double time kick beat. Deconstructing the original melody and mixing it up, turning it over into something new by the time it comes out on the other side. It's an instrumental journey.
I'm surprised I really haven't hear him brought up in the low-fi conversations, the timeline, having started during the time of all the other low-fi contemporaries. If anything I think that's what being from New Zealand gets you...you're lumped in with the Dead C...all the flying nun stuff...you can't break away from that categorization.

Both of the covers on the B-Side are miles away from the introspective first side, but these are covers remember? The first 'Open Up' is a Michael Hurley song from his 1971 album 'Armchair Boogie'. Both are played with a ukulele sound, or maybe just capo-ed up acoustics, I'm even catching an accent, on these quiet syrupy tracks. Lots of echo, layers of vocals, with just enough tempo to keep it from stalling completely. Goth Folk for an acoustic indie set. Especially on 'Pacific Ocean', from a contemporary NZ band, The Axemen who must have played a show or two with Pumice. It's more upbeat, but Pumice just has this melancholy style that takes this somewhat optimistic song and flips it.

Get it direct from Soft Abuse....they also put out a tour Grouper/Pumice split that I think you'll have to track down on ebay at this point...I'm going to be getting his full length efforts from SA after hearing this single.

Following a mammoth tour of Europe, Japan & the US in 2007-2008, Stefan Geoffrey Neville took a sabbatical from Pumice. After a silence of several months, Stefan slowly began to re-emerge in New Zealand, playing (the drums) with a few bands in Auckland. Slowly, a few proper Pumice gigs were played & soon thereafter, in January 2009, Neville started work on a new batch of recordings. One of those found a home on the split single with Grouper, while the others, appear on Persevere; a befitting title for Neville's first new grip of songs following his hiatus. Three songs comprise Persevere: 'The Dawn Chorus of Kina,' an ode to (alleged) singing sea urchin, and covers from two vision-sharing kindred spirits: The Axemen ('Pacific Ocean') and Michael Hurley ('Open Up'). Persevere is released in an edition of 500 copies, housed in textured paper sleeves adorned with Neville's signature dog drawings. - Soft Abuse

pumice - from mimaroglu music sales

I'm getting some mixed messages from Pumice. On one hand on his site has a really nice 4-track recording with some really messed up vocals through some kind of tortured electronics, that I'm really into. Someone that can write a catchy half pop acoustic song with some nice changes, complete with drums and then decide to mess with the vocals like this, so drastically, that's what gets me on your side. It's not so precious you can't try something that has amazing potential. Or it's just the way you solved the problem of vocals. That's what Mellow Gold was made out of, no expectations...just deciding this was going to be good. Letting the mistakes turn into something uncontrollable.
But then the snippet of a track on the Mimaroglu site is just like some kind of million sound freakout. I really didn't think I had the right artist...it's all experimental and anti-song. I think most of the noises are being made with a human voice, just so insanely destroyed, it's something else. But I'm really intrigued if there's more like Brawl on this mini EP, combined with a good bent circuit here and there.

Get it from Mimaroglu:
*Artist: PUMICE
Title: Providence
Format: 7"
Label: 8mm

"New Zealand based Stefan Neville is Pumice. My first contact with his music was Pumiceraft (Last Visible Dog, 2004), one of the best record of the last 10 years if you ask me. This new single ep, contains 4 songs recorded in Us in 2006, during his residence at AS 220, Providence, RI. And its supposed to be the new Pumice classic! Tracks sound like the usual beautiful mix of fragile psyche-pop songs + near droning rock, all mixed in a lo-fi punk style! Comes in a classical snobbish cover printed by ilcanedicoda, with drawings by s.neville himself. 250 copies that are supposed to not stay here forever.