Chicago’s Finom – the band co-fronted by Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, formerly known as Ohmme – announce their new album, Not God, out May 24 via Joyful Noise Recordings. In conjunction, they presents its alluring lead single/video, ‘Haircut,’ and announce record release shows in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. Finom’s influences run vast and varied, and they put a premium on change. Produced by Jeff Tweedy in the The Loft, Not God is a marvel of growth, a progression from the roots of this collaborative band whose history can be traced back to its improvised conception. This is owed in no small part to their hometown of Chicago, the life raft to so many persisters in musical adventurosity. That energy combined with Finom’s dramatic vocal and musical gifts puts them in the peripheries of the legacies cemented by The Roches, Roxy Music, the B52s, Kate Bush, Cate Le Bon, and Wilco.
Pressing play on Not God, you’ll hear two voices. Cunningham and Stewart both sing, yet there is no question as to who is who. These are two artists with pronounced identities, and as they weave themselves into the songs they write those identities grapple in real time. They’re brilliant harmonizers. But harmony doesn’t equate to a utopia; Harmony can also be a fight, holding the line until the volcano erupts. This realistic depiction of a creative relationship jolts throughout the songs of Not God, and brings the whole damn thing to life. They grow together, harnessed by their shared loves of pop songwriting, honesty, and being generally freaky-deaky. Freaky in that way that is only really fun when you’re doing it with a friend.
It’s only fitting that on ‘Haircut,’ Finom blend their voices and sounds together in perfect disharmony. It’s the album’s starting gun, setting the stage for a confident attempt at the pursuit of maturity on the stage of experimental rock and roll in the realm of sonics and songwriting tradition, as well as the eternal experiment of being in a band. The accompanying video, directed by Alex Grelle, is joyfully eccentric. The band elaborates: “‘Haircut’ was written following the stream of suggested words from Macie’s phone robot. Somehow this intelligence intuited that we wanted to say ‘no’ more– to control more of our own time. Alex Grelle, one of our favorite artists and collaborators, directed the video for us with a genius group of artists. We were inspired by this strange and beautiful France Gall short film that Jeff and Spencer Tweedy showed us while we were recording.”
Not God:
- Haircut
- Dirty
- Naked
- Hungry
- Not God
- A Petunia
- Cyclops
- Cardinal
- As You Are
