Pom Poko - Birthday (2019) [Hi-Res]

Pom Poko release their debut album, 'Birthday', via Bella Union. Between the quartet's sweetly punky melodies and disco-fried art-rock eruptions, a spirit of free-firing, balls-out individuality courses through this exhilarating debutThe band marked their Bella Union signing earlier this year with the unveiling of the rau-cous and unpredictable 'Follow The Lights', with its cacophonous and hulking beat acting as an impressive statement of intent from the new signees. With their debut album an-nouncement today, Pom Poko have shared another new single in the form of 'My Blood'. Barely tamed by a time signature, rapidly shifting between various keys, chaotic & bois-terous, the high-energy track sets an exciting tone for the album as a whole. Pom Poko are Ragnhild (lead vocals), Ola (Drums), Jonas (Bass) and Martin (Guitar). The 4 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 Sangare and Ali Farka Toure; indie bands like Vulfpeck, Palm and KNOW-ER; noisy high-energy bands such as Hella and Death Grips; and music with interesting lyrics such as Jenny Hval and Nick Drake." But you'd struggle to pin them down to one or two forebears, given their resistance to anything resembling a prescriptive approach. Speaking about the origin of their name, which taken from one of the more vigorously ou-tre 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."