Yumi Zouma

Yumi Zouma emerged in 2013 when three companions from Christchurch, New Zealand, launched an electro-pop project built around home recordings that soon extended far beyond its origins and carried their unhurried, sweetly melodic sound across multiple continents. Their approach combined soft vocals with enveloping synthesizer textures and steady, gently bubbling rhythms, an aesthetic that developed incrementally until acoustic instruments and live drums entered the arrangements on the 2022 album Present Tense.

Vocalist and guitarist Kim Pflaum joined multi-instrumentalists Josh Burgess and Charlie Ryder to shape the band’s early lo-fi electro-pop material in the first half of the 2010s. After exchanging files with Brooklyn’s Cascine label, the group joined its roster and readied the four-track EP I, which appeared in early 2014, attracted swift attention from music blogs, sold out several vinyl editions, and prompted a collaboration with Swedish electro-pop duo Air France on a reinterpretation of the single “It Feels Good to Be Around You.” Around the same period, original lead singer Kim Pflaum departed and Christie Simpson stepped in. By the arrival of EP II in 2015, Yumi Zouma had already performed across Australia, the U.K., France, Canada, both U.S. coasts, and throughout New Zealand, where they supported Lorde.

With members now based in New York, Auckland, and Paris, the band assembled its first full-length album, Yoncalla, while traveling together on tour; Cascine issued the record in May 2016. Later that year the foursome returned to New Zealand to begin work on the follow-up, tracking it inside a Christchurch studio situated on one of the few central-business-district blocks left standing after the earthquakes of the early 2010s—the first occasion the entire group had recorded together in one room. The resulting Willowbank offered a more laid-back take on the electro-pop of their debut. Drummer Olivia Campion joined them on the road and soon became a permanent member.

Following their contribution to the Stadiums & Shrines-curated Dreams compilation in early 2018, Yumi Zouma released EP III that September, marking the first project without Sam Perry, who had left to concentrate on his band DOG Power. The reconstituted quartet tracked their next album across Los Angeles, London, and Christchurch, handling production themselves before sending the mixes to Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange). Issued in early 2020 on Polyvinyl, the gently poppy Truth or Consequences became their first release for the label. Like countless other groups worldwide, they adapted to pandemic lockdowns by conducting remote sessions throughout 2020, a process that paradoxically broadened their sonic palette to include live drums, orchestral woodwinds and strings, and grand piano. These additions lent 2022’s Present Tense a warmer overall tone and greater dynamic range than earlier releases.