New Zen Mantra Video & Album Out Now
“…twangier, psychedelic version of something you’d hear from The Cure.” – NYLON
“..elicits an eerie nostalgia and the inescapable tinge of vague melancholy…”
– GORILLA VS. BEAR
“…there’s an urgency to what’s being said, and with vocal lines as ethereal as these it’s hard not to hang onto every word…” – IMPOSE
The self-titled second album from New Zealand’s Zen Mantra (Sam Perry) has been released on Flying Nun Records and to celebrate Zen Mantra has also shared the psych-inspired visual for lead-single, Second Skin.
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Perry, who is also a member of Yumi Zouma, wrote and recorded much of it by himself in various planes, trains, homes and hotel rooms around the world whilst on tour with them. Following his 2013 debut How Many Padmes Hum, the 10-track album sees the 21-year old expanding his focus to incorporate all forms of pop music from ethereal shoegaze to walls of psychedelic distortion.
With much of the album’s inspiration coming from the German 1960s/70s underground and the UK psych scene circa 1980 (fun fact: the name Zen Mantra was taken from some of Sonic Boom’s liner notes), Zen Mantra has a pure pop energy, an expansive sound and plenty of hooks.
Perry continues: “When I started out making music I wanted everything to sound huge. My ideal sound was ambient, polished, compressed, driving and loaded with hooks. Some kind of blissful, stadium sized psych-pop project. In the end I wanted to make something that felt like a pop record, but with an underlying sense of dissonance. Something that for most part is quite energetic and rhythm heavy, but without forgoing any atmospheric qualities.”
Yet it’s not all warm and blissful, with the album’s darker, emotional themes at times brilliantly warping these ‘pop’ songs. Leaving the listener with the slight sense of unease, like a sombre psych pop record you found lying melted out under the sun.
Zen Mantra is out now on Flying Nun Records.
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