Ahead of the release of their fourth studio album, beloved New Zealand alternative pop band Yumi Zouma today share the final single , ‘Astral Projection’ to be lifted from the record.
Their new album Present Tense is released Friday, March 18 on digital and CD formats, with vinyl to follow on April 8.
Throughout their fourth LP, which follows 2020’s acclaimed album Truth or Consequences, Yumi Zouma expand on their established, ethereal dream pop with defiance and a palpable sense of urgency, drawing on collaboration to push the four-piece out of their comfort zone, looking to explore the extreme edges of their music, resulting in their most formidable release to date. At the same time, the four-piece approached their songwriting in a more deliberative, time-rich manner, affording each track on Present Tense the space and opportunity to gestate at its own pace, content to let ideas come into their own
The final track on the album, ‘Astral Projection’ epitomises this revitalised creative process, originally conceived by guitarist Josh Burgess, who felt as though he’d been handed a sliver of brilliance after the song had been through multiple rewrite attempts by bassist Charlie Ryder and vocalist Christie Simpson, before ultimately abandoning it. “It was as if I’d been given this rescue cat who had the potential to be great,” he says.
Between them, the song developed into a bass-driven slowburner, moody and oddly prescient, carried by an emphatic backbeat and a widescreen guitar lick awash in nostalgia. “Hold me in your arms, I know this wouldn’t last / I know I shouldn’t feel safe, but I do / Hearing you don’t care, I’m out of view,” Simpson sings as Yumi Zouma’s fourth LP itself fades out, a final message on the importance of connection and the ephemerality of life. Behind her, the outro twinkles like a summer skyline at dusk, violets and grays intermingling with the bright glow of a thousand open windows. “I daydream about playing that one live,” Burgess says. “In bed, I’ll close my eyes before sleep and imagine the drumbeat kicking in.”
‘Astral Projection’ arrives on the back of previously released singles ‘Where The Light Used To Lay’, ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’, ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘Give It Hell,’ which garnered praise from The Fader, Stereogum, Billboard, NME AU, The Partae, Flying Nun, Happy Mag and more, and was spun on the coveted triple j’s 2021 with Richard Kingsmill.
The accompanying video for ‘Astral Projection,’ filmed by director Alex Ross Perry (Soccer Mommy, Sleigh Bells, 2018’s feature film Her Smell), is the final instalment in a trilogy of narrativised, interconnected videos that follows on from ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’ and ‘Where The Light Used To Lay’.
On his approach to the project, Perry shares: “Agreeing to make three interconnected videos was something I should have thought about for longer than fifteen seconds before agreeing to it. The anxiety of conceptualising a small story, that can be told without dialogue, and set to music, gripped me from the moment my video call with the band ended. Their thoughts were excellent, specific, and unachievable with the time and resources I would be able to pull together.
“But I began to feel inspired by the concept of taking these vast ideas and situating them within a single location, transforming the aesthetic, visuals and mood to match the three different songs,” he continues. “My only chance for success was to rely heavily on a great cast and crew to create these spaces and film them in a way that felt consistently alive and unique. Fortunately for me, they all over delivered.”
