Pompey
Pompey vs. Vesuvius
Label: Pocket Clock

In the tradition of Animal Collective, Olivia Tremor Control and the Lone Pidgeon comes Melbourne, Australia’s Pompey.

As sort of an experimental pop experiment, Pompey vs. Vesuvius flows in and out of cohesive song bits, elemental and environmental sound, lyrics and nonsense. It’s perfectly refreshing and melds into the background nicely - like your wacky uncle at Christmas dinner.

It’s currently a free net release, which means you can download the album in its entirety here.

Favorite tracks include “I Have a Tail,” You can Eat What You Want” and “I am a Battle, I am an Ant.”

Inspired, we dug a hole to Melbourne, Australia and thrust our tin-can phone through narrow opening to chat with Pompey about the record’s back story, the appeal of free MP3 albums and learning how to paint. Read on…

How did this album come about? What kind of response are you getting?
The record’s “story”: Originally the record was going to be this nice, cohesive story record, but after two years expansion and dilution of what the ideas were, it was decided it would be best if the record was cut into a sort of ‘mixtape’ type thing. It would move so quick that the emotional response that would have come about from a really big narrative comes, um, naturally. I don’t know if it works. Hence the ‘EP’ on the back of it when it is more album-length.

What has the response been?
The response is what I’m working on at the moment. Not so many people are keen on writing about free MP3 releases. I think they are awesome. I could keep putting out records by great bands ’til I keel over and not worry about running out of money.

There’s a wide variety of musical thoughts here. Who are your influences?
These are a few people/groups that inform Pompey:
Scott Walker
Kate Bush
Arthur Russell
Alvin Lucier
Environmental music/field recordings
Jean-Claude Vannier

So what’s new down under?
We’re just trying to get Pompey together as a live thing, y’know, hunting down Stage Fright and arrangement problems etc etc. It was always meant to be a studio endeavour only but e-e-e-everyone ends up playing shows. There was a show last week, and it went well I guess. Also, learning how to paint.

Again, you can download the album here, and if you like it, you should drop Pompey some $$$.