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Vinyl 12”
Pre-order $28.99Read MorePIASR5210EP
Estimated release date: April 11, 2025
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Download
Pre-order $4.99320 kbps, LAME-encoded
Available: April 11, 2025
When Noonzy – Antwerp songwriter Arnaud Stockbroekx – first put on the shiny turquoise jumpsuit, something clicked. The garish outlandishness of the outfit was like a child’s idea of what a rock star should look like: shimmering Lurex, Bowie-esque lightning bolt, shocking-pink fringing, Nehru collar. The strange contrast between this innocent pre-teen daydream and the brilliantly grotesque reality of a grown man recreating that dream exemplifies what Noonzy and his music is all about: at once wistful and playful, self-deprecating and extravagant, all undercut with an absurdist streak the Belgian Surrealists would approve of. Ceci n’est pas une rock star. This is not a rock star – this is a phantasmagorical reimagining of the rock star trope; a joyful, sugar-coated subversion of the hyper-masculine rock star cliché. Welcome to the Noonzyverse.
Noonzy’s EP Puppies comprises five infectious, elegantly crafted avant-pop songs, the EP glides from love-flushed longing (‘Where/When’) to the pleasures and pitfalls of being a lone ranger (‘Fishy’) to a blazing desire for tangible relationships with people (‘Mama Mia’). Impulsively catchy, the songs twinkle and cascade with exuberant expressive basslines and hazy analogue synths, simultaneously evoking the carefree leisure of youth and the spiky anxieties of our modern disconnected age.
Noonzy spent a number of months reworking the lo-fi songs he’d previously recorded, ‘going off into these deep, deep rabbit holes’, adding layers of synths and digital strings before dialling everything back down again, ‘boiling the songs down to their essence.’ In the most radical reworking, ‘Mama Mia’ retains only the drums and vocals from the original recording, giving way to softly whirring synth waves, melodica and a buoyant, beautifully unpredictable bassline. You can hear the care and attention that has gone into these songs, and yet at no point do they feel overlaboured. To retain that lightness of touch after countless revisions is testament to Noonzy’s natural skill and self-awareness as a songwriter, honed over years treading the boards in the pubs and clubs of Flanders.
Digital Tracklist
- 1 Where/When 2:56
- 2 Buffalo 3:07
- 3 Fishy 3:50
- 4 Mama Mia 3:17
- 5 Simple Explanations 2:40