Name: Pom Poko + congratulations - The Crescent, York
Start: 2024-10-16T19:30:00+01:00
Location: The Crescent Community Venue

Please Please You & Brudenell Presents
Pom Poko
+ congratulations
The Crescent, York
Wednesday 16th October, 7.30pm
£15adv >> http://www.pleasepleaseyou.com
Pom Poko return with their third album Champion released by Bella Union this summer.
Pom Poko are growing up. On Champion, a monumental slice of reflective and life-affirming post-punk, vocalist/lyricist Ragnhild Fangel Jamtveit, bassist Jonas Krøvel, guitarist Martin Miguel Almagro Tonne, and drummer Ola Djupvik are the closest they’ve ever been, both personally and in terms of their hermetically tight four-piece rock instrumentation. When most bands call each other “family”, it’s a bit of a cliché—but with Pom Poko, after years of touring the four corners of the world and instituting a stringently democratic songwriting process, they really have evolved into one highly-synchronized unit, whose mission is to stay as true to their artistic values as possible while continuing to explore the farthest reaches of their slightly chaotic, always exhilarating sound.
“It feels like we’re maturing and growing up together,” explains Ragnhild. “By the time this album comes out, we’ll have been a band for eight years. It’s like we’re evolving. When you’re not grinding with the band all the time, you gain an appreciation for what you’ve built. It's like a very weird and really lovely little gang to hang out in. I almost feel like we’re superheroes—it’s like being a part of Powerpuff Girls.”

Champion is Pom Poko’s third LP, after their blistering debut Birthday in 2019, and 2021’s critically acclaimed Cheater. Both albums served to cement the band’s sound: Ragnhild’s high-pitched yet crystal clear voice punctuating the rest of the band’s ferocious onslaught of noise, which fluctuates from post-punk to math-rock and everything in between.
“We made Birthday during insane amounts of touring where we were giving every bit of our life to the band,” says Ola. “For practical reasons, we’ve recently had to take a break from regular interactions with each other. Martin became a Dad so we obviously couldn’t rehearse for a while. It sounds kind of cheesy, but you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I just assumed that the feeling I had playing with Pom Poko was just what it’s like playing in bands—but it’s what it’s like playing in our band.”
This growing appreciation for playing together translates directly to the music. While Pom Poko still maintain their razor-sharp edge, there is a new-found maturity that bleeds through the slashes of acerbic guitar blasts and elastic basslines. Champion has more space than their previous records, more room to experiment. “It's a bit less cluttered,” says Martin. “You maybe wouldn’t put it on at the spa or something, but it's not as quick-firing as a lot of our other stuff has been—songwriting-wise and production-wise, it’s more to the point.”