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Manchester Music
Pellumair - Summer Storm
As a Nada Surf fan desperately trying to get over the disappointing experience of listening to their rather flaccid recent album "The Weight Is The Gift" , I can only describe what an anti-dote and uplifting experience "Summer Storm" is. This album has been on constant rotation for three weeks now and the bands haunting combination of acoustic guitars, epic electric riffs and grinding c86 crescendos, is impressively matched to ethereal vocals and layer upon layer of subtle harmonies.
Pellumair are in fact a duo and 24 year old Jaymie Caplen (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Tom Stanton (vocals, electric guitar), hail from Southampton, cutting their teeth, as you would expect with bands like The Delays.
Just spinning "Side For This" and previous single "Iris" is a brilliant experience - both songs are compelling, tuneful and just so incredibly well written and arranged. But there's even more treats in store for my evil side, as "Painted Over" erupts with catchy grunge chords and melts away to folky, 60's imbibed warblings, which just tease away, before crashing back into the noisy hookline. "Silk As Her Era" is effectively a ballad, supercharged with delays and background fuzzes - a powerful cocktail of lilting melodies and widescreen guitars.
The album gets progressively darker as final track "Retirement Gold" deliberately drives a bleaker tune, set alongside contrasting sunny vocals - this is all wound around the rasp of simple chord progressions, cut out with black eyeliner and indie goth shoegazing aplomb. An excellent, inspiring debut.
Xpressmag
Pellumair - Summer Storm
Every once in a while music crosses your path that will forever onwards be a part of your journey. They're the songs that make up the soundtrack to your life, and although they introduce themselves as strangers, soon they become so intertwined with your own memories they become a part of how you define yourself. They make you wish everyone else in the world had heard them, if only for the hope that everyone else can catch a glimpse of the amazing feeling ricocheting through your body. They inspire you to climb to the same heights; to create on your own something as powerful and as important. They make you remember music on its own can make you feel part of something bigger than yourself. The connection between yourself and the artist may never be more than that of an admirer, thankful from afar, but the parcel of their soul you have sat and unwrapped so connects with your own that the distance of time, and geography, and a billion different lives all dissolve into the fact that we are all somehow connected... and that we always have been, and always will be. As a tiny grain of sand in the infinite vastness of the universe, our species shimmers and twinkles out into the darkness not because of our warring conquests, not because of our great differences, and not because of our individual uniqueness, but because underneath all of that, we are one and the same. This, for me at least, is one of those albums.
MIKE WAFER
Glasswerk
Pellumair - Summer Storm
Jaymie Caplen and Tom Stanton parade with impunity their playful, powerful and drum-less sound, while standing out for their unashamed approach to making music for the love it, as oppose to music for noise. They are as much an endangered species as the Giant Panda. 'Side For This' commences the subtle persuasion to their ways, with deft guitars that reflects the inner peace of the pair using them. The enchanting, yet worried Neil Finn vocals on display in 'Lucy' have the ability to shake the proudest listener.
With a commanding air of serenity; slow and meandering numbers such as 'Seventy', along with the echoing and choral natured; 'See Saw' bolsters belief that the path to tranquillity is paved mind-raking discovery. The prominent acoustic nature to the album provides a warm backdrop, to highlight the bolder musical tit-bits and the carefree vocals of Caplen. The title track displays that with the craft of an artist; Pellumair blurs the boundaries between visions and memories, as the streaming guitars and vocals bring the two concepts together.
The pace picks up in the hurried and wandering 'Silk As Her Era', with Caplen singing as though he is saying goodbye forever to someone on the 14;12 train to Brighton. The haunting and troubled; 'Postcards' builds upon a throbbing guitar riff to place a blanket over the range of emotions explored on this thrilling debut, from Southampton's most earnest and candid musos.
Losing Today
Pellumair - Iris
Pellumair 'Iris' (Tugboat). As perfect a release as I've heard in such a long time. This debut stings, hurts and plays upon your emotions with the subtle dexterity of a classical trained violinist, taunting, teasing and disarming you from inside out. Pellumair are duo Jaymie Caplen and Tom Stanton and these three tracks usher in a breathless mix of angelic choral vocals and advancing skeletal acoustics that at times recall the timid nature of those early Turin Breaks releases, 'Iris' the lead cut is an arresting example of heart breaking pop at its most potent, think of the majesty of Galaxie 500 spliced by the ghostly beauty of the Delgados and the church like reverence of Low. 'Force Error' is the sound of Oddfellows Casino emerging from their fairytale hideaway to be bathed in awe by the crisply affecting chill of a picturesque daybreak. Resistance is useless. 'Turnaround' completes the set, wistfully lost in its own self-made wonder, it achingly cascades with the wintry after taste of Moviola / Buffalo Springfield to cut to the core. Whatever other gems Pellumair have tucked under their collective beds could prove to be the finds of the year. A precious release.
Mark
Manchester Music
Pellumair - Iris
Southampton duo PELLUMAIR release their debut "Iris". An airy vocal is suitably backed by acoustic guitars, but some careful arrangements add pianos and hidden loops to a rather heavenly delivery, of extreme melody and atmospheric janglings. There's more than a similarity to Delays' breezy pop, but the more sombre, but no less ambitious "Turnaround" reflects on echoes of the 60's and traditional folk nuances. An inspired cut of feeding back guitar sits perfectly behind the mesmeric acoustic guitar picks. "Force Error" provides a more traditionally strum but the tune spins off late 80's / early 90's indie, twisted into the folkier side of town. A great collection of impressive songs that hit all the right spots. Pellumair make a serious, infectious debut.
JR
Glasswerk London 7/11/04
Pellumair - Iris
Here we have three tracks featuring alluring and meditatively soothingly folk meets Mersey beat instrumentals. Additionally, there is the deft vocals of Jaymie Caplen that give this debut offering from the dreamy, percussion free Hampshire duo a soothing and tantalizing touch. 'Iris' will float around in the ocean of your mind like a dingy in the pacific. Memories of the heyday of Simon & Garfunkel will come rushing into your mind in the uplifting 'Turnaround' that is more emotive and thought provoking than a John Donne poem.
Calming ocean noise like backing and the stronger almost Dashboard Confessional type vocals in 'Force Error', brings this fleeting, yet ever so memorable introduction to Pellumair to a strong conclusion and boy; the pleasure will be all yours. This harmonious pair has the depth and dexterity to woo the nation into a state of dreamy happiness.
Dave Adair
Eclectic Honey
Pellumair - Iris
Hot on the heels of The Delays' successful dissemination from Southampton , Pellumair have set sail with their acoustic guitars and troubled stories hoping not to sink like the Titanic. Iris' folky backbone is merged with an effervescent lightness, which makes its understated quality come to the fore. Wrapped up gorgeous vocals, and layered harmonies its warmth instantly noticeable.
Both bsides Turnaround and Force Error meanwhile are both almost as good, if slightly less melodically engaging. Certainly Pellumair's 'quiet and still' sensibilities are honed enough to merit them listening space in an already overcrowded genre, and while as a debut single Iris is very much a work in progress, it certainly bodes well for future releases particularly if Pellumair can add something a little bit different to their talents.
Michelle Dalton
Live Reviews
Your So Old Street
Nottingham Trent University , with Hal & Delays 28/10/04
In their first real tour Pellumair couldn't have picked a better band to support than the Delays: the two, with their dreamy melodies, complement each other perfectly. Pellumair began the night's proceedings in a rather odd fashion, ambling onto the stage looking like two stray roadies. They then strapped on their guitars, one electric, one acoustic and all of a sudden it began to make sense.
Pellumair comprises friends Tom Stanton and Jaymie Caplen (both 24 and from Southampton ). Their music intertwines their two guitars and voices perfectly, creating a hypnotic sound that's a hauntingly emotional mix of gentle vocals and Ride-like guitars. At times it was hard to believe that there was only two of them on stage. They certainly managed to produce some large sounds (almost soundscapes) as they alternated singing the choruses.
New single 'Iris' (out 15th November), one of the folkier numbers played here tonight, impressed with its gorgeous vocals and layered harmonies. Even more impressive I thought were the rockier tracks they played which included the kind of distorted guitar effects once pioneered by indie gods My Bloody Valentine. Whether that is a recipe for commercial success is debatable, but nobody could deny tonight that the band have already found their own unique voice and a healthy direction in which to take their music.
The two friends have been performing in various bands for seven years now and I think they may have finally hit a winning formula. I, for one, will certainly be checking out their debut album next year.
David.
This Is Fake DIY
The Mill, Preston , with Hal & Delays 24/10/04
First on Pellumair. Two roadies come on stage and check to see if the guitars are in tune. Hang about they've been on for a few minutes already, where's the drum tech or the bass?
On closer inspection it becomes clear these aren't just any roadies, they're wearing scarves, flat caps, the whole works. They actually are Pellumair. On paper it shouldn't work, two guitarists, one acoustic and one electric, armed with an arsenal of echoic effects pedals. There shouldn't be any atmosphere in here, there shouldn't be any depth to the music, but the crowd stand motionless with expressions of shock on their face as the two Southampton boys fill the room with a wall of noise with acoustic twiddling on top. It sounds fantastic. The set's as tight as a badgers bum hole - and it needs to be, any mistakes here would stand out a country mile and send the whole thing crashing down into oblivion. There's a depth and atmospheric to the music when it really doesn't belong there, as is testament to how good they really do sound.
David Quinn
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