Zomes

Zomes is a new solo project by Asa Osborne (Lungfish, The Pupils, Tear Jerks). A lot of people don’t know this but Asa punched Keith Levine in the face a few years ago and uses one of Levine’s teeth as a pick on this album that straddles the valley between Seesselberg and library music…

Zomes is the new solo project of Lungfish guitarist Asa Osborne, who for this debut album strings together a number of misshapen lo-fi loops and miniatures across an album that references Vincent Gallo-style rundown melancholy, stargazing kraut rock, and a selection of organ-driven passages that bring to mind a miniaturised Religious Knives. Osborne is at his best on pieces like ‘Night Signs’, a beautiful, hiss-coated guitar phrase, repeated in a sombre, ambiguous fashion over a couple of minutes. It makes no associations or attempts at narrative, but there’s undoubtedly something quite moving embedded within its diminutive frame. Elsewhere Osborne gets rocking a little harder, marrying overdriven chord sequences with rowdy, furniture bashing beats on the likes of ‘Crowning Orbs’ and the progged up ‘All Together’.

I saw Zomes open for Brightblack Morning Light as a three-piece last month and was left completely speechless. This year’s self-titled release combines the diverse texture of Black Moth Super Rainbow with the repetition of Boards of Canada in a sound quality that could have been captured by anyone’s bedroom. Osborne has put out a very surprising album, sounding radically different yet incredibly related to his work in Baltimore’s “prog-punk” veterans, Lungfish. Sixteen hypnotic jams of emotional underscoring have made Zomes one of my favorite albums of the year. If you find yourself interested, please check out Religious Knives and Expo ‘70.

Purchase Zomes here

Zomes – Night Signs
more downloadable tracks