SOUNDTRACK: OHMME-Tiny Desk Concert #848 (May 9, 2019).
It’s not very often that I have seen a band before I have seen their Tiny Desk Concert (most of the time it’s the Tiny Desk Concert that makes me want to see the band). But I saw OHMME open for Jeff Tweedy last year and they were amazing.
This Tiny Desk captures most of that amazingness with some difference. Like in our show, Sima Cunningham (white guitar) and Macie Stewart (blue guitar) sang and played guitar (intensely fuzzed out guitar). But at our show, one of them played violin for a few songs, which is not used here, and here they have a drummer, Matt Carroll.
When Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart fired up their angular guitar sounds during soundcheck at the Tiny Desk, I was thrilled. The shrieking, rhythmic noise these two classically trained musicians make as Ohmme is what made their debut album, Parts, a musical highlight for me in 2018. But hearing them in the office, trading vocals with such ping-pong precision, sent me into euphoria. This is now one of my all-time favorite Tiny Desk concerts.
Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, along with drummer Matt Carroll, steer clear of rock music clichés that plague so much of the music I hear these days. Their adventurous spirit is sometimes challenging. But it opens a window on what the voice can be. It also redefines what the guitar can do — at one moment it’s a stuttering percussive instrument, the next it’s a bed of noise with a harsh tone that somehow morphs its way into the melody.
This show has four songs (!) Yay! Sixteen minutes of songs from an artist I like.
“Water” is the song that blew my mind when I saw them live. That amazing buzzy guitar sound, the way the guitars morph and change, the way the bridge is harsh and alienating, the noise-filled “solo” and then of course, the hocketing. I am frankly shocked that the blurb doesn’t talk about the hocketing:
the rhythmic linear technique using the alternation of notes, pitches, or chords. In medieval practice of hocket, a single melody is shared between two (or occasionally more) voices such that alternately one voice sounds while the other rests.
Both Sima and Macie alternate notes in a beautiful yet disorienting melody. And the wonderfully noise-filled guitar solo that Macie plays is such a wonderful contrast to the catchy melody of the song. It’s a stunning song.
“Icon” is a simpler song–on the surface. The verses are a simple up and down melody–soothing and familiar. But the chorus just takes off with high notes and an unexpected emphasis on the words “I want a new icon.”
“Parts” has Macie playing a looping guitar line while Sima plays a low bass-ish part. They sing in harmony with Sima taking some occasional low notes. This song has some very cool dramatic slow downs and build ups combined with wonderful lyrics.
My bloody Mary had arrived and so I bent into the pain
He can’t believe all the distortions I put my body in
Like an acrobat and banshee decided to inhabit
The same fleshy husk and it’s my job to stand it
A fly with a vengeance kept landing like a dancer
He must have had a grudge for some dead ancestor
I smashed last summer in a fit of rage
I don’t like little things touching my face
Sima also takes very pretty guitar solo on this one.
The final song “Grandmother” goes out to their grandmothers whom they love very much. After a quiet opening (featuring Sima’s wonderful vocals), the song takes off in a three note rocking motif (with Sima scratching up and down her guitar for interesting sound effects). Then Macie takes off with a noise-fueled guitar solo that would make any 90s band proud.
They are wonderful live and I can’t wait to see them again.
[READ: May 13, 2019] “Brawler”
I enjoyed Groff’s book of short stories recently, so I was intrigued to read this one as well. And it features Groff’s unique peculiarities of subject and outlook.
Sara was on the diving team. As the story opens, Sara is late for the match (but has not missed it). She was in detention for getting in a fight–her knuckles were bloody and raw. But she snuck out of detention when the moderator fell asleep. Her coach called her “Brawler.”
Sara had originally been on the swimming team, but she was caught “brushing the boys’ junk in their Speedos with her hand as they swam by in the next lane.” Diving suited her more, anyway.
Her dive was a success, even if she had to cover her minor foul with her bloodied knuckles (apparently the back of her head had grazed the board).
On her way home, she stopped at the market. The boy nodded and she quickly came in and stuffed two frozen meals into her backpack. The boys mother came out shortly after and told him in her native language to watch “this thieving sneaky little bitch.” But Sara grabbed some mango ice pops and paid with a smile.
When she gets home the story does a complete somersault. Sara’s mother is more or less catatonic on the couch. She barely eats–surviving on homeopathic vitamins and the occasional ice pop. She bleaches everything, believing that it is the only way to keep things pure.
Sara feeds her and takes her to the bathroom (when she occasionally has to go). Sara’s only relief from this perpetual un-living was when her mother passed out and had to go to the E.R. But the doctors determined she wasn’t enough of a danger to herself or other to admit her.
No amount of diving glory or even detention can ease the pain of her daily life.
I Just Read About That... 
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