. Unlike previous records assembled remotely or pieced together ahead of time, this one was built from scratch — collaboratively, in person.
Mid-tour, the band decamped to Mexico with a blank slate. Instead of refining pre-existing ideas, they started fresh, letting humour, spontaneity and shared experience drive the sessions.
“I think we were kind of curious to know how that would work in the middle of touring, because normally we record at the end of a big tour cycle, so you’re kind of a little burnt out from being audacious with your dynamics and stuff like that.
“We also like to go to places that’s no one’s hometown … And quite honestly, I do feel like that is a really nice part of everyone being elsewhere because you’re also having a lot of collective experiences together.”
Known for their dreamy, ’70s-inspired pop sound, the new record also nods to Aotearoa ‘s rock lineage, drawing subtle influence from bands like Shihad, Fur Patrol, Stellar and Tadpole.
“Christie [Simpson] was channelling Courtney Love a lot on this record,” says fellow member Charlie Ryder.
The tone was set early with the track ‘Drag’, written in Mexico.
“Christie wrote some incredible lyrics in it that are in that sort of monotonic thing about a recent diagnosis that she had of ADD [attention deficit disorder]. It was amazing to see that come out in real time. It was quite an intense thing to witness. But yeah, I think it was the song that we all held at the centre of this body of work.”
Play video
Pause video This video is hosted on Youtube.
Ryder says fans who thought the album was full-on rock got to see the full range when the album came out.
“There were some people who were like, ‘Oh, no, you’re so different to how you used to be, the band I fell in love with’. But we were always like, just wait for the rest of our album, there are still the pop songs on there.”
The album also plays with nostalgia and sound design. A Nokia 2280 ringtone makes an appearance, alongside a harmonica part played by Burgess — a moment that caused fits of laughter in the studio.
“It felt like just a funny thing to do. Sometimes ideas are just funny and you do them,” Burgess says.
“We never really had the confidence to like fully push [random ideas] to the forefront and have a star moment [before]. So, you know, roast me in the comments for my harmonica sound design.”
Even the album title flirted with absurdity. ‘Tunnel to Hell’ was briefly floated before being scrapped.
“We can be a little avoidant with making executive decisions,” Burgess says. “So we’ll do things like someone will just throw something absurd as a title and that will deflect from the actual decision-making process of having to make a decision on a song title or something.
“But, I mean, ‘Tunnel to Hell’, that would be a gnarly album title. I’m glad we didn’t go with that … maybe ‘Gondola to Heaven’?”
As Yumi Zouma prepares to take the new material on the road, they’re opting for some train travel across Europe instead of buses or vans.
“There is something super romantic about being on the train and writing in a diary or something like that … that might give a whole different feeling to it. Because you sort of leave from the middle of a city and then you pop out in another.”
The band hopes to return to a New Zealand show this winter.