New Zealand indie-poppers Yumi Zouma released Truth Or Consequences, their last album, at the exact March-2020 moment that the pandemic was starting to shut the world down, and they had to end their US tour after a single show in DC. After that aborted tour, the members of the band scattered around the world, with members living in New Zealand, New York, and London. But in all that time away form each other, Yumi Zouma kept working on music together. In that time, they finished a new album, and that album will be out in a couple of months.

Yumi Zouma recorded the new LP Present Tense in remote and in-person sessions around the world. They’ve already shared the early singles “Give It Hell” and “Mona Lisa.” Today, they’ve announced the looming release of that LP, and they’ve also shared a third single. “The Eyes Of Our Love” is a soft but propulsive pop song with some serious melodic hooks. It’s a worthy entry in Yumi Zouma’s growing catalog and in the rich history of New Zealand indie-pop.

The song’s video comes from Her Smell filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, and it’s the first in a trilogy of interlinked Perry-directed clips. In the clip, three young women respond to a mysterious invitation, and psychedelic things happen. Below, check out the video and the Present Tense tracklist.

In a press release, Yumi Zouma’s Charlie Ryder says:

Recorded at 204bpm, “In The Eyes Of Our Love” is a rip-roaring belter of a track and the fastest song we’ve ever written. What started out as an homage to Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift ended up as a love song set against a backdrop of torture and insurrection stoked by the Nixon administration, so if you like songs with two bridges and strong socialist leanings, then “In The Eyes Of Our Love” could be the track for you!

Alex Ross Perry says:

Agreeing to make three interconnected videos was something I should have thought about for longer than 15 seconds before agreeing to it. The anxiety of conceptualizing a small story, that can be told without dialogue, and set to music, gripped me from the moment my video call with the band ended. Their thoughts were excellent, specific, and unachievable with the time and resources I would be able to pull together. But I began to feel inspired by the concept of taking these vast ideas and situating them within a single location, transforming the aesthetic, visuals and mood to match the three different songs. My only chance for success was to rely heavily on a great cast and crew to create these spaces and film them in a way that felt consistently alive and unique. Fortunately for me, they all over delivered.”

TRACKLIST:
01 “Give It Hell”
02 “Mona Lisa”
03 “If I Had The Heart For Chasing”
04 “Where The Light Used To Lay”
05 “Razorblade”
06 “In The Eyes Of Our Love”
07 “Of Me And You”
08 “Honestly, It’s Fine”
09 “Haunt”
10 “Astral Projection”

Present Tense is out 3/18 on Polyvinyl.