artist Enjoy Your Pumas

Enjoy Your Pumas are an independent four piece. They spend countless hours writing and perfecting songs in dusty jam spaces, cold basements and on unstable staircases. They have a female singer who likes to use her voice in strange yet comfortingly familiar ways. Some say she sounds like Lizzy Powel, Karen O, Emily Haines, or the Cardigans' Nina Persson. Really, her voice is all her own. The Pumas like to match her voice with the sound of warm electric guitars buried under layers of delay. They like sexy, pulsating bass grooves and uptempo rhythm because they like to dance and move. They like dancing because they like to stay warm. They're from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Shackleton and his crew of explorers may have braved the Antarctic cold, but he never made it through a Winnipeg winter. He might have found that the only way to stay sane is to play music. The cats from Pumas know this.

The band is Rosie Blais, Josh Benoit, Marc Gomez and Luke Janzen. Rosie is the voice. She's got pipes and dance moves to boot. She's also got a gaze that'll see straight into your soul! Josh plays the guitar. He likes his delays thick and warm and his juicy licks will tickle your ears. Then there's Marc Gomez romancing the bass. Marc's tasty lines will move your very essence--just try to keep your hips from swaying! Finally, you got Luke Janzen banging those skins. His beats are notorious for breaking necks from all the head shaking they induce.

Since their formation, the Pumas have played quite extensively in their hometown. They have played both the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg orientation weeks, Barge Fest at the Forks, Le Festival du Voyager, and the Manitoba Film and Music Showcase. They have also shared the stage with major touring acts such Hot Panda, AWOLNATION, We Are The City, San Sebastian, SSRI's, Sweet Thing, and even Jon Bon Jovi (no joke).

The Pumas released their debut album Commonality in February, 2011. They stepped out of their province to tour that album across Eastern Canada in June 2011. The tour culminated with a showcase performance at Toronto's NXNE festival at the famed Sneaky Dee's venue. The album was well received, garnering reviews like "Enjoy Your Pumas are a new band that are really, really easy to enjoy" Jack Foley, Indie London. And this one, "With their blend of artful guitar figures, bubbling New Wave-ish bass runs and percolating drum din, the band makes a case for EYP being our very own Metric. The big news, of course, comes in the form of singer Rosanne Blais, whose breathless, open-mouthed articulations set the bar high." Jeff Monk, Winnipeg Free Press.

The Pumas have presently returned to those dark corners of their city to hunker down for the winter and turn out a batch of brand new songs, the likes of which may change the very fabric of reality as we know it. More likely, perhaps, they may just put out a new record that you will come to love and adore.