International alt-pop band Yumi Zouma has announced the release of their eagerly awaited new album, Present Tense, arriving March 18. Pre-order exclusive Early Bird vinyl on Ivory Rose (limited to 1000). The New Zealand-born band’s fourth studio album is preceded by the rousing new single, "In The Eyes Of Our Love," alongside the first in a mesmerizing trilogy of official music videos directed by filmmaker Alex Ross Perry – watch below. 

"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,” says the band’s Charlie Ryder. “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 (this) could be the track for you!"

Dedicated to an embattled past, Present Tense is Yumi Zouma’s offering to a tenuous future. The album follows 2020’s acclaimed Truth or Consequences, released on the very same day that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The band had only just embarked on the first – sold-out – North American tour when the world shut down and the four members of Yumi Zouma went their separate ways and returned to their respective homes in Wellington, Christchurch, London, and New York. 

In response, Yumi Zouma set to work, declaring a September 1, 2021 deadline for the album needed to be finished, regardless of world events. What began in fits and starts became a committed practice again as the band worked on new material, digging through demos from as early as 2018 and making them relevant to the peculiar moment in time. Present Tense evolved via remote and in-person sessions in Wellington, Florence, New York, Los Angeles, and London, its sound developed and broadened by pedal steel, pianos, saxophones, woodwinds, and strings played by friends around the globe. The complex scope of the recordings were then fine-tuned by an array of top mixers, including Ash Workman (Christine & The Queens, Metronomy), Kenny Gilmore (Weyes Blood, Julia Holter), and Jake Aron (Grizzly Bear, Chairlift), with mastering by Antoine Chabert (Daft Punk, Charlotte Gainsbourg). 

The band first revealed Present Tense with last fall’s debut of "Give It Hell". Inspired by the band’s experience at the start of the pandemic, the track was met by critical applause around the world, with NME praising it as “luminous…a cruisy, lighthearted synth-pop number driven by bright, ‘80s pop-channeling keyboards, and a vocal performance that is restrained, but emotive and evocative.” "Mona Lisa" arrived before year’s end, joined by a self-directed official music video filmed in Lyttleton, New Zealand – a stone’s throw south of the band’s hometown of Christchurch. 

Yumi Zouma will celebrate Present Tense with a truly epic world tour, including a long awaited North American run beginning April 7 at Atlanta, GA’s Terminal West and then continuing through early May. Los Angeles-based artist/guitar virtuoso NoSo supports April 7-15 with additional support from JORDANN, MiniTrees, and Beauty Queen. Tickets onsale now.