The Phoenix Foundation - "Bright Grey" MP3 (PopMatters Premiere)

New Zealand’s the Phoenix Foundation continues on the path of the smart, crisp and shining pop set by their Kiwi forbearers, artists like the Clean and the Chills. The British press has been all over this group with The Times calling them “New Zealand’s finest purveyors of psychedelic pop” and The Guardian tagging their latest record, Buffalo, as “an album that already seems destined to be among the best of 2011”. Sadly they have gone fairly under the radar in the US up to this point, even as Buffalo got a US release back on 14 June. Look for that to finally change with the deluxe edition release of Buffalo here in the States on 18 October. This latest edition will be an iTunes exclusive. The tune we are premiering today, “Bright Grey”, is a bonus track off the new deluxe edition, but it just as easuly sounds like the A-side of a hit single, which shows just how deep this band’s catalogue of tunes is.