Almost from the very first note, Yumi Zouma‘s music arrives with a wave of nostalgia — bittersweet and revelatory, invoking simpler days and warmer climes when the weather is just so and that’s part of its immediate charm. “The Brae”, with its angular guitar lines and somnabulatory air, is impressively effortless in its ability to instantly invoke far away places. The ease of which becomes slightly explanatory when you take Yumi Zouma’s backstory into account: New Zealand friends not only far from home but separated from each other come together to make music.
Yumi Zouma’s creative process is not unlike that of your standard electronic producer and vocal collaborator with a major difference: Nothing about Yumi Zouma seems at all synthetic. Where file-swapping usually carries a patchwork quality, “The Brae” is cleanly polished, smoothly plodding, and not at all unlike the work a band might turn out from a studio together. Instead Yumi Zouma have crafted an organic work of carefully layered pop oddly reminiscent of a bygone era despite its very modern creation. Ultimately, Yumi Zouma’s friendship-steeped bisque lands right into the middle ground of dream pop reveries – never too atmospheric but never quite abandoning its romantic daydreams the results of which are just right.
“The Brae” is from Yumi Zouma’s self-titled debut EP out February 11th on Cascine. You can pre-order it on limited edition 12″ here.
