In The Lions’ Den: Pumarosa

Experimentation became a vital part of ‘The Witch’’s make-up as a result, and this was furthered when the band were, somewhat inexplicably, took up residency at a huge disused cinema in the remote Italian region of Calabria. With songs as big as skyscrapers and a penchant for anything grand, it was a perfect fit for the band. “You learn so much from doing things that are just different,” guitarist Jamie Neville adds. “That’s how you start to zoom in on a reference point of how you sound together in a different context.”

The trip, which saw the band sleeping under the stars on muggy nights - a far cry from the London they left behind - also accidentally saw them play their biggest gig to date, when they invited the Calabrian locals down to the venue on their last night in residence, with everyone from toddlers to 80 year-olds stumbling upon something pretty bloody confusing. “We were just jamming - not even playing songs - and they all just came along and danced and loved it,” Jamie chuckles, before Isabel reveals that the gathered throng stood, watched and danced along to multiple hours of pure improvisation, either through politeness or confusion. No matter, taking themselves out of “the London bubble” they operate in 90% of the time served to give Pumarosa that bit of perspective when they returned to the capital and took to 180 HQ, the once infamous home of Palma Violets.

“There’s this level of self-consciousness that exists in London, and it’s so strange and nice to interact with people outside of the bubble. The bubble is fascinating, but there’s a whole world out there,” Isabel exclaims. The good and evil of life in the capital is one that fuels ‘The Witch’.

“It tries to reflect how London is constantly changing,” the vocalist says. “How you get pushed around. Also the complexity of it. London’s amazing - it’s shimmering and beautiful - but it’s also really dark.” The polarising nature of the band’s day-to-day life in the city comes across significantly on the album - from the bleak, industrial crunch of ‘Lions’ Den’ to the sky-reaching, euphoric ‘My Gruesome Loving Friend’, the majestic and the mundane are both given equal weight.

“Some days, it feels like everyone in London comes together and it feels warm and orange and lush, and then on others it’s really bleak and blue,” Isabel begins, with Jamie adding that, “London’s constantly shifting and you always think you know what it is, and then one thing slightly changes and all of a sudden you’re in a completely different community.”

Pumarosa are, to a large extent, a product of their surroundings, and the current social and political climate gave Isabel the urge and the need to concern the album with prominent female protagonists, right down to its immediate, evocative title. “There’s a theme of female leads in the songs”, she agrees. “Often when I’m singing, I’m singing about these women, which, when I’m listening to other music, is something that I often see to be missing or absent. Women are usually sung to, as these figureheads or -isms, and I was trying to sing more about what it feels like to be that figure, rather than just always seeing it portrayed it from the outside.

“Straight away, calling an album ‘The Witch’ conjures up certain feelings, and for me it’s trying to address the notion of the witch and the demonisation of the female that’s been present for the last 600 years or so, and never quite left,” she continues.

“The kind of shit that’s going on at the moment, hugely reductive ideas from the American government, and regarding contraception, it’s like, oh my god. It’s very strange, but then it’s really exciting and important to be aware, and to be reading whatever you can, and not just taking what’s handed to you. Because it’s all there, you just have to find it.”

Pumarosa’s debut album ‘The Witch’ is out on 19th May via Fiction.

Photos: Mike Massaro

Taken from the May 2017 issue of DIY, out now. Subscribe below.