POZI share new single and video “The Nightmare”
POZI SHARE NEW SINGLE + VIDEO
“THE NIGHTMARE
NEW EP 176
RELEASED 3RD JULY ON PRAH RECORDINGS
POZI have today shared a brand new single from their forthcoming new EP 176 (out 3rd July on PRAH Recordings).
“The Nightmare“ employs jarring call and response-style vocals to construct a sonically disorientating sound, evoking a panic stricken bad dream or the anxiety felt when trapped in an unnerving social situation.
Although written and recorded pre-pandemic, the title could not be more apt to the world we currently find ourselves in. The video, also released today, puts the band in a CGI nightmare as reality dissolves throughout the track.
“After seeing some of Alfie’s brilliant animations we asked him to create a 3D world that visualised the way anxiety can warp reality,” say the band. “We had no idea of the pandemic that was about to happen when we first planned the video, so we had to adapt. Alfie helped guide us through this and was full of great ideas.”
“It presented us with a unique challenge, as we had to film our parts separately, in our own spaces,” says director Alfie Dwyer. “The video is therefore also a time-capsule that expresses the claustrophobia and creativity that the virus has brought out in people.”
About 176
Less than twelve months since the release of debut album PZ1, the London trio announced details of the new EP. 176 boasts five new tracks written and recorded over a fruitful five days at PRAH Studios, Margate. The band took a more expansive approach to the composition process, taking inspiration from the spatial and rhythmic sonics of electronic music and blending it with their existing unique sonic palette of drums, bass, violin, vocals…and no guitars.
“We wanted to start fully utilising Rosa’s voice as, adjacent to the other vocals, it really adds another layer to our music. Much of the jamming sessions were spent working around a way to weave this into the sound we’d already created,” explains vocalist / drummer Toby Burroughs. “As we’re all singers and writers, if someone has something that they want to say in a song, it’s great for us to be able to share the lead vocal around.”Taking its title from the eponymous London bus route that runs from Penge to Tottenham Court Road, 176 contains themes of paranoia, social anxiety, jealousy and the accompanying nightmares these can create. As violinist / vocalist Rosa Brock explains: “All five songs have quite grim, dark subject matter. Once we’d started exploring that paranoid, angsty kind of path, the floodgates seemed to open and we ran with it”
Lead single “Whitewashing” – which was playlisted at BBC Radio 6 Music last month – was released alongside an animated music video that brings to life the theme of the song: being cornered on a motorway journey with an old friend, feeling trapped and uncomfortable in the passenger seat as they unexpectedly try to impose their bigoted views upon you.
POZI 176 EP tracklisting
Whitewashing
176
The Nightmare
40 Faces
While-U-Wait
About Pozi
Pozi come steeped in the lineage of the very best weirdo British indie pop. The trio of drummer/vocalist Burroughs, violinist/vocalist Rosa Brook and bassist/vocalist Tom Jones have a skittish, restless energy.
Despite drawing on influences such as Devo, Wire and Television, there are no guitars on PZ1 and the space afforded by the lack of this potentially domineering component is refreshing. Instead, there’s Brook’s violin that by turn swells and stresses, either buoying proceedings along or collapsing them into discord. Jones’ rough, scruffy basslines hold each song tightly together as all great bassists should do. Then there’s Burroughs’ sparsely-filled but frantically driven rhythmic repetition and his capital city yelp, words tumbling out as though desperately trying to get out of the way of the ones behind.
In addition to gambling addiction and debt, lyrical subjects range from the Grenfell Tower tragedy of 2017 to Chinese human rights transgressions to smartphone addition and poor mental health provision, Each are unpacked vividly. Burroughs is a colourful orator yet also direct and raw in his response to such sensitive issues. Although they share little in common musically, POZI unwittingly chime with current politicised UK indie acts du jour Idles and Sleaford Mods in distilling their anger into impactful mantra.
The band are cutting in their criticism but Burroughs is loath to posit the group as social preachers. “Our songs mostly have an observational standpoint,” he says, “just reflecting some current social and political situations. I don’t think they have a direct impact, but maybe ask a few questions.“
PZI was championed by the likes of Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq, Gemma Cairney, Huw Stephens, Marc Riley, Radcliffe & Maconie, Amy Lamé, Tom Robinson, Tom Ravenscroft and John Kennedy, to name just a few.
“Whitewashing”
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