Noonzy Shares details of forthcoming EP “Puppies” Out on March 28th via [PIAS] Recordings + releases new single ‘Buffalo’
[15/01/25] New [PIAS] Recordings signing Noonzy, the solo project of Antwerp-based musician Arnaud Stockbroekx today announces details of his forthcoming EP Puppies released on March 28th 2025. Alongside the announcement comes second single ‘Buffalo’ - watch the official video here.
‘Buffalo’ strikes the perfect balance between emotional depth and dynamic arrangement. Beginning in a subdued, contemplative tone before blooming into a richer, more hopeful soundscape the track is lyrically poignant and musically intricate. On the song Noonzy reflects:
“Sometimes Godot just really isn’t coming, so you might as well accept it and
move on... I like to think the song somehow captures this transition from
frustration to relief and empowerment.”
Following his first offering ‘Where/When’, ‘Buffalo’ further demonstrates the thoughtful craftsmanship behind the forthcoming EP Puppies, and offers a taste of its broader themes of self-discovery, vulnerability, and growth, while showcasing Noonzy’s ability to balance introspection with an accessible, ear-catching melodic sensibility.
[PIAS] Recordings will release Noonzy’s debut EP on March 28th 2025. Comprising five infectious, elegantly crafted avant-pop songs, the EP glides from love-flushed longing (‘Where/When’) to the pleasures and pitfalls of being a lone ranger (‘Fishy’) to a blazing desire for tangible relationships with people (‘Mama Mia’). Impulsively catchy, the songs twinkle and cascade with exuberant expressive basslines and hazy analogue synths, simultaneously evoking the carefree leisure of youth and the spiky anxieties of our modern disconnected age.
When Noonzy – Antwerp songwriter Arnaud Stockbroekx – first put on the shiny turquoise jumpsuit, something clicked. The garish outlandishness of the outfit was like a child’s idea of what a rock star should look like: shimmering Lurex, Bowie-esque lightning bolt, shocking-pink fringing, Nehru collar. The strange contrast between this innocent pre-teen daydream and the brilliantly grotesque reality of a grown man recreating that dream exemplifies what Noonzy and his music is all about: at once wistful and playful, self-deprecating and extravagant, all undercut with an absurdist streak the Belgian Surrealists would approve of. Ceci n’est pas une rock star. This is not a rock star – this is a phantasmagorical reimagining of the rock star trope; a joyful, sugar-coated subversion of the hyper-masculine rock star cliché. Welcome to the Noonzyverse.
Stockbroekx’s Noonzy persona came into being in the autumn of 2022. Having fronted bands in London and Antwerp (GANA and Toko Joyce), Stockbroekx challenged himself to start a new solo project, recording a slew of songs over the course of a few weeks in a makeshift studio he set up in a garage just outside Antwerp. Playing most of the instruments himself, Noonzy builds his songs up by first “doodling, doodling, doodling” on guitar until a melody or spontaneous lyric triggers a theme – then he runs with it, twisting those strands into fully fleshed-out earworms.
On the strength of one of those songs – ‘IDK’, a delicate acoustic paean to twentysomething uncertainty – in January 2023 Noonzy was selected as a finalist of De Nieuwe Lichting, the renowned competition run by radio station Studio Brussel in search of new musical talent. What followed was a flurry of attention and activity. Picked up by Musickness, Flanders’ biggest music management company, within weeks Noonzy found himself supporting his soon-to-be labelmates, art-rock titans Warhaus and dEUS, thrust in front of 2,000 capacity crowds across Europe, just him and his acoustic guitar.
Rising above any intimidation, on the back of these gigs he caught the attention of [PIAS], who signed him before the end of the year. Pushed to experiment more freely by the label, Noonzy then spent a number of months reworking the lo-fi songs he’d previously recorded, “going off into these deep, deep rabbit holes”, adding layers of synths and digital strings before dialling everything back down again, “boiling the songs down to their essence”.
In the most radical reworking, ‘Mama Mia’ retains only the drums and vocals from the original recording, giving way to softly whirring synth waves, melodica and a buoyant, beautifully unpredictable bassline. You can hear the care and attention that has gone into these songs, and yet at no point do they feel overlaboured. To retain that lightness of touch after countless revisions is testament to Noonzy’s natural skill and self-awareness as a songwriter, honed over years treading the boards in the pubs and clubs of Flanders.
Just as Stockbroekx reshaped the songs that now make up the Puppies EP, he also wanted to remodel his image to fit the Noonzy persona – “to cut up Arnaud Stockbroekx”. As he explains;
“I feel like there is a softness inherent not only in the music that I make, but also maybe in the person I am. Evidently there’s a soft side to Noonzy, which I think is a good thing, and I don’t want to lose it – but I want to counteract it with something, to challenge it a little bit”.
Enlisting the help of costume designer Ruby Renteurs, Noonzy quickly hit upon this idea of “embodying the eleven year-old brain”, of giving adult form to the fierce, fanciful dreams of stardom of a wide-eyed child untainted by adulthood’s strains and strictures. Knowingly satirical as well as unapologetically flamboyant, it is about re-accessing the purity, creativity and boisterousness of adolescence – of “being the biggest child around” whilst also producing exceptionally sophisticated pop music.
Through determination and improvisation, Noonzy has found a way to live out these dreams. His turquoise jumpsuit is redolent of Bowie, but as he points out: “David Bowie is unreachable, and I want to remain reachable, relatable and tangible… Noonzy is not digital. Noonzy is very much handmade.” In the video for the first single, ‘Where/When’, Noonzy wanted to recreate the kinetic thrill of green screen technology in real life. Filmed performing on the loading platform of a moving truck as it creeps around a nondescript suburban backdrop, he becomes the small-town superstar, the mere mortal rock god.
Driven by this never-say-die DIY ethic, Noonzy’s numerous successes so far – De Nieuwe Lichting, European tours supporting his heroes, the backing of a major label – have all stemmed from him modestly gathering the courage to record these songs in a homemade analogue studio, a dream factory of his own making: proof that the Noonzyverse is aspirational to all. The glamour of stardom – whether real or imagined – is accessible to everyone, if you just dare to reach out and touch it.
