Pumarosa is a London-based electro-pop band led by front-woman Isabel Munoz-Newsome. Last year reviewers hailed the band’s first single, “Priestess,” as they toured alongside Glass Animals. Now, they’re back on a solo tour with the release of their debut album less than a month away – and we managed to snag a few minutes with them in Berlin.
KALTBLUT: Your first studio album, The Witch, is coming out May 19th . How was it recording that, and what are you feeling now that it’s completed?
Isabel: It’s been great, sort of happening in little sections of the last year or so with [producer] Dan Kerry, who’s wonderful. But it’s a funny period – waiting for it to come out – because it’s thing you’ve been working on for so long, and then you know it’s there, but people haven’t heard it yet. It’s weird, but exciting.
KALTBLUT: How about working on the new music video for “Dragonfly”?
Isabel: We worked with the director Holly Hunter, who also did our video for “Priestess,” and just makes wonderful artistic films. “Dragonfly” is a very different song – sort of more mysterious and downbeat – so the video reflects that, but still has a similar aesthetic.
KALBLUT: Would you say the whole album is kind of more in that downbeat, mysterious direction?
Isabel: No, not at all. When we were trying to arrange the tracks we tried balancing it out and were like, “okay, this is dance-y, this is downbeat, this is rock,” and I suppose there’s a few very tender songs and then others that are more epic and aggressive. So it’s like different moods, but they all seem to have their little group.
KALTBLUT: Did you have an overall theme going into the album?
Isabel: Not really, it all happened pretty organically. There is something cohesive, but we didn’t plan it that way, it sort of just happened. There are those people who’ve been planning their first album all their life or something, but we’re not those people.
KALTBLUT: Pumarosa is some kind of fruit, right? What’s the connection or how did you guys end up calling yourselves that?
Isabel: We had a different name originally, but we didn’t want to keep using it. Then it took us like a year to find a new name. It just became a kind of unsolvable puzzle; in 2017, with so many bands in the world, every name is taken. I thought it would be kind of cool if the identity of this band, which is mainly men, had something sort of feminine in the name. I’m half-Chilean, so I’d be thinking about things that we like, and then translate them. Pumas are something wild, but then rosa is red, which is a really elemental and dangerous color. When we put it together and googled it we found this amazing tropical fruit, which is kind of gross, yet beautiful, so it was perfect.
KALTBLUT: Have you gotten to taste it?
Isabel: No we’ve never tried it, but we might do some gigs in Mexico this year and I think it might grow there.
KALBLUT: Was naming the album as difficult as naming the band?
Isabel: Naming the album was hard, but then “The Witch” just seemed like such a central point of the album from which it all revolves, it became obvious thing to take it as the album name. I like the message and the intensity of it, plus I quite like how it’s fragile, but saying something so strong, which is exciting.
KALTBLUT: What’s been your favourite show to date?
Isabel: Well, I have to tell you two, because the ways in which I consider them my favourite are just so different. We were asked to play The World Hall in London and that was just an incredible experience playing at such a respected venue in England – it’s like the place the queen would go to a concert. So everyone’s parents came and we had a lovely time.
The most fun gig, though, was when we played our first kind of “big” headline show in London in this half-burnt down old house – this incredible shell of a building – and it was just complete mayhem. It was so packed and we were trying to get in thinking “they all must be here for the other guys that are playing,” but they were there for us. With all those people the floor was literally shaking and people were trying to hang from like bits of broken walls – it was just bonkers. Then like two seconds after we started playing, the electricity blew. Once everything got settled, during our song Cecile, I was so into the music and the energy of the crowd, I started shaking, but then I couldn’t stop shaking. I sort of fell down and knocked everyone’s instruments over it, and somehow it was just all part of the spectacle and the crowd went with it. But it was a really wonderful night there.
KALTBLUT: You’re set for a few festivals this summer, then what’s the plan?
Isabel: In September we’ll start the actual album tour; this is kind of just a preamble. The we’re hoping to go to the U.S. and Mexico, maybe South America, and come back to Germany and England. It’s really exciting, but slightly terrifying, this being our first solo tour and all.
‘The Witch’ is out 19th May via Fiction Records, pre-order here
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