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CD
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SAB 105CD
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"Pumice returns with an exquisite experimental bathroom sink pop record in hand, dubbed Phylis. This time out the long-running Aotearoa band, currently a duo consisting of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley, fracture sore-thumbed folk songs into crumpled bricks with riffs written on the toilet. Wonky South Pacific skiffle careens into heady organ dirges followed by galloping blurts of afterlife feedback. As ever, texture and accidents rub up against melodies, rhythms are not strict and words are grubby. But with Phylis, the restless band tenders its most exuberant, straightforward and enjoyable pop record yet. Recorded at Neville's Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland studio in 2021, Neville and Farley have returned to the simple and joyful instincts of the earliest Pumice recordings. Nylon strings, drums with the feet, the empty and the absurd. Impossible to think of something analogous to the cosmic comforts on offer here, Phylis once more presents songs that could only come from the world of Pumice."
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LP
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SAB 093LP
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"Pumice -- now the duo of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley -- stretch time further out, leaning heavily on drones and moans in making their modern-day Aotearoa folk rock masterpiece. The fruits of their time together as a pair has come to bear in the buzzing, swirling epic: Table. Table! Table primarily finds Pumice deep in a pastoral expanse, with Farley's violin lines and Neville's organ drones serving collectively as guide. Elsewhere the dense fog of synth, guitar, F/X, chants and melodies create warm miniature zones to tuck into. With each new recording, Pumice finds a way to achieve new levels of rugged grandeur. Table is the latest example."
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LP
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PLANAM 037LP
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A collection of Pumice recordings from 1993-'99, when teenagers Sugar Jon Arcus and Stefan Neville learned about music by doing it. The album covers the earliest days of the band recording on ghetto blasters with untuneable guitars at home in Whatawhata and Hamilton, New Zealand. There are a couple of recordings from their first public performance with drummer Ugly Dog Davies, at which their friends yelled at them relentlessly. There is material from their years spent living in Dunedin, NZ, with cassette four-track machines. Living cheaply in a cheap city with pet dogs and all the time in the world. Finally, the album includes music from the move back north to Hamilton and Auckland. Material that was released in microscopic editions as lathe-cut 7"s and cassettes, documenting Arcus's final participation in Pumice activities. The LP features trio and duo recordings as well as solo recordings by both Arcus and Neville. The basic multi-directional creative impulse for which Pumice is known is there from the beginning. One-chord pop songs, crumbling folk music, and smeared-organ sound-sculptures. Small speakers shitting themselves with distortion and tape saturation. Acoustic guitars twanging and Neville and Arcus clearly learning to write songs of real quality. This music-making manages to be bold, reckless, and stupid, as well as delicate, sad, and instinctive. Pumice has always done whatever the fuck it wants to. Edition of 300 copies in silkscreened sleeve.
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CD
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SAB 050CD
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"Deep into a genius career, Pumice still surprises with his subtle mastery of broke-down sounds, slowed-down Magic Band rhythms, crumbling chord organ hymns & tragic ballads that reach deep into the very soul of Flying Nun/Xpressway/Root Don Lonie For Cash anti-pop pop music. PUNY is as difficult to fathom & as easy to love as all his best work." - Glenn Donaldson.
"Another wistful & unique -- yet familiar -- offering from this modern Kiwi noise-pop auteur."
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