Pumice

Stefan Neville, a New Zealand native, has maintained Pumice across many years as a ceaselessly creative outlet whose loose, unruly sound draws equally from local pop acts like the Clean and Tall Dwarfs and from the nation’s more abrasive experimental noise-rock outfits such as the Dead C. Working primarily alone and relying on rudimentary gear, Neville typically layers distorted guitars, wheezing chord organs, and vocals buried beneath layers of tape hiss and static. Casual listeners may perceive the tracks as random, yet closer attention uncovers a genuine respect for both pop structures and blues traditions. Frequent collaborators including Sugar Jon Arcus and Matthew “Ugly Dog” Davies have joined him since he launched the project in the early ’90s, circulating limited cassettes, vinyl, and later CD-Rs through his own Stabbies and the Rocket Recordings (commonly shortened to Stabbies Etc.) as well as CJA’s Root Don Lonie for Cash imprint. Pumice’s initial exposure beyond New Zealand arrived with the 2004 album Raft, issued by California’s Last Visible Dog. Subsequent short-run CD-Rs appeared on Audiobot and Ultra Eczema before Neville aligned with Minneapolis label Soft Abuse, which issued most of his later work and broadened his reach considerably. His first Soft Abuse title, Yeahnahvienna, emerged in 2006 and was succeeded by Pebbles in 2007 and Quo in 2008, both displaying more refined songcraft and earning widespread praise. Over the following years he issued singles and EPs on vinyl, among them Persevere and a 2009 split 7" with Grouper (both on Soft Abuse) plus a self-titled 10" for Doubtful Sounds in 2010. In 2012 he delivered PUNY, among his most ambitious and fully realized long-players. Two cassette mini-albums, Land and Kambrook.Rammar.Instant.Archer., surfaced in 2014, while the Italian imprint Planam compiled early cassette material as the 2015 vinyl collection Poise Etc. Pumice’s next full-length studio album, Puddles, closed out 2015 on Soft Abuse.