The Stumps
The Black Wood

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    The Stumps are a New Zealand based noise-rock trio made up of members Antony Milton (Pseudoarcana, The Nether Dawn, Mrtyu, etc), James Kirk (Sandoz Lab Technicians, Black Boned Angel, Gate, etc), and Stephen Clover (Palindrone, seht).  Formed in Wellington in 2003, the group is known for its noisy guitar soundscapes and improvisational take on psychedelic rock music.  Most often, Clover plays bass, Milton sings and plays electric guitar, and Kirk plays drums, though the group are known to expand their instrumental palette using synthsisers, field-recordings, electronics, and guest musicians.
    With a laundry list of individual accomplishments preceding them, The Stumps bring high expectations. They've been compared to such seminal acts as The Dead C, Guru Guru, Acid Mothers Temple, Fushitusha, Les Rallizes Denudes, Sun Ra and the Velvet Underground, but these Kiwis have their own twist in their psychedelic cosmic explorations.  They are robust and powerful; an exciting and often overwhelming listening experience.  It'll burn out your eardrums and douse the flames in hot wax.  But fear not, within these methodic blasts are moments of icy calm.  Underneath all this chaos is a relaxed thread, keeping some semblance of order intact.
    The group performs very infrequently outside of New Zealand, although they have travelled twice to Australia (in September 2005 and August 2006) to perform a number of very well-received shows.  In March 2007, The Stumps' recent LP "Split Fleet Dodge" was placed at #18 on Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's Bull Tongue "Top 80 of 2006 list", in Forced Exposure (in an article
originally intended for the defunct Arthur magazine).