It's no secret to our readership that The Rust holds jazz in a universalist light: We consider it to be an “everyman's music”, and a kind of emotive experience that moves beyond physical and cultural boundaries. In the Te Aro district, the heart of musical expression in Wellington, New Zealand, one such group has spent their formative years across dives, venues, and busking blocks. The result is a conscious merging of contemporary rock and minimalist jazz elements into a warm, soulful, and digestible blend; HUMMUCIDE’s roots take their discipline from the compositional and rhythmic prowess of musicians like Aphex Twin and Yussef Kamaal, acknowledging the gradual merging of palattes and flavors in the realm of instrumental music, and simultaneously fleshing out their own organic vision of eclectic songwriting.

Their most recent release, the self-titled EP HUMMUCIDE, is the product of an entire post-adolescence spent reworking and refining a select group of tracks near and dear to the band’s members. Toby Leman, Ben Stewart, and Hugo Olsen-Smith began their group forray into the jazzosphere back in their highschool years, and met their fourth and final member, Lennox Grootjans, as they went on to pursue undergraduate programs in jazz school. After road testing and developing their most honed-in routines, the recorded EP is a stunning testament to their multi-displined learning, and to the spiritual jive that permeates jazz music. Be it the buttery, pocketed sensibilities of “Reacher”, or the lush waltz of chords and percussive shuffles in “8 Mullups”, HUMMUCIDE doesn't just have a knack for crafty riffs and touch-and-go harmonies; they have a clear understanding of the power of swing and syncopation.

The youthful fire of their early years, coupled with a sharpening of their skillsets through dilligent education and experience, rounds out every potential edge to the HUMMUCIDE EP. It displays a love, appreciation, and well-earned proficiency in the realm of jazz theory and genre mutations, betraying a confidence in craftsmanship that makes acts like HUMMUCIDE so immediately alluring. After getting in touch with the shine applied to tracks so many years in the making, we're gladly sitting tight until the next bout of finely tuned HUMMUCIDE adventures.

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