New Zealand’s Yumi Zouma has always caught my attention, so much so, that I found their recent record release at Sweat Records, the day after posting an article about it and did not hesitate to purchase it. Great record all the way through.
Any way, today Sam Perry, member of Yumi Zouma has released a track from his psych-pop project Zen Mantra titled “Second Skin” and it’s a great one. Bit of a throwback sound for some, yet has all those tasty elements in it that will make you come back for more. Well done Sam! Give it a spin below and make sure to be on the lookout for more. Zen Mantra is out April 15th on New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records.
Here are some words Sam said on GVSB:
“My second Zen Mantra record was written over the course of the last three or so years, and thus it covers a lot of emotional ground for me – I practically spent half of my teenage years writing it and grew up a lot in the process…Years went by, years spent finishing high school, falling in love, touring the world for the first time and coping with the sudden death of my father, my relationships changed, my relationship to music changed – I scrapped a few records, and the one I ended up finishing got bent severely out of shape.
When I started out making music I wanted everything to sound huge. My ideal sound was ambient, polished, compressed, driving and loaded with hooks. Some kind of blissful, stadium sized psych-pop project. In the end I wanted to make something that felt like a pop record, but with an underlying sense of dissonance. Something that for most part is quite energetic and rhythm heavy, but without forgoing any atmospheric qualities.”