Stream: Homme, ‘Fingerprints’

Kevin Bronson on November 9th, 2015

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Chicago’s Homme offers surprises of all kinds, and all them pleasant. First, they pronounce their name “ohm.” Second, Homme is not a dude, but the collaboration between singers and songwriters Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham. The former was part of Windy City rockers Kids These Days, whose frontman was Vic Mensa and whose album was produced by Jeff Tweedy. The latter, among her other projects, was a backup singer in Tweedy, the band the Wilco frontman has with his son, Spencer. None of which really prepares you for Homme’s six-track debut, which is at turns enchanting, experimental and eloquent. The duo fiddles with song structures and atmospherics, darting between electric and acoustic, with their vocals largely unvarnished (they rise celestially to the occasion when the song calls for it.) There’s a vibrant, organic quality to all of it, for which Cunningham — who co-owns and manages the studio where it was recorded, Foxhall — credits the influence of songwriters such as Tweedy. “Music doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to sound like it comes from you,” she told the podcast The Myth of Fingerprints. Coincidentally, Homme’s first single is titled “Fingerprints.” The album is due to be released Friday, and they hit Los Angeles for a show Sunday night.

||| Stream: “Fingerprints”