Pumajaw - Favourites

Following on from last year’s well-received Curiosity Box, perennial candidates for the title of “Scotland’s best-kept secret” Pumajaw present a timely retrospective of ‘favourites’ picked from their earlier days. The non-chronological tracklist emphasises consistency over evolution, though the picks from 2000’s From Memorial Crossing are generally less interesting than their more recent counterparts; at their best, Pumajaw’s alluringly alien compositions sound like no one elsen - on Sorcery, they run a little too close to diluted Portishead. But by 2006’s Becoming Pumajaw the complementary pieces were in place: Pinky McClure’s incredible, vertiginous vocals - at times malevolent, at others inscrutable, yet always seductively soulful - combined with a smorgasbord of musical styles courtesy of über-talented multi-instrumentalist John Wills, including psychedelic pop, alt-folk, subtle electronica and various hybrid combinations that resist categorisation. While somewhat inconsistent (as such collections are wont to be), Favourites is a rewarding re-introduction to an excitingly idiosyncratic, but too often overlooked, talent.