Description
Label Review.
2019 album also available in CD.
Our Overview.
Phenomenal debut by Pom Poko entitled ‘Birthday’ and indeed it is their birthday with this new release. Pom Poko are Ragnhild (lead vocals), Ola (Drums), Jonas (Bass) and Martin (Guitar). The four met whilst all studying at the Trondheim Music Conservatory in Norway and quickly garnered interest from a wider audience as they began playing and writing together.
The group cite a range of influences for their unique sound, including “(West)-African music like Oumou Sangaré and Ali Farka Touré; indie bands like Vulfpeck, Palm and KNOWER; noisy high-energy bands such as Hella and Death Grips; and music with interesting lyrics such as Jenny Hval and Nick Drake.” One would struggle to pin them down to one or two forebears however, given their resistance to anything resembling a prescriptive approach.
Speaking about the origin of their name, which taken from one of the more vigorously outré films by Japanese animation visionaries Studio Ghibli, the band explain, “The Pom Poko film captures a lot of what we’d like our concerts to be: high energy, fast pace, lots of stimulus for eyes and ears - and most importantly, really crazy and fun. The movie is basically the time of your life for two hours, and afterwards you’re in some state of exhausted ecstasy. Plus the raccoons in the movie, and raccoons in general, are really badass.”
Between the quartet’s sweetly punky melodies and discofried art-rock eruptions, a spirit of free-firing, balls-out individuality courses through this exhilarating debut.
LP includes digital download code.