Zomes

Zomes originated as a solo endeavor by Asa Osborne before evolving into a drone-rock duo. Osborne had already established a reputation through his contributions to Lungfish and its offshoot Pupils, along with his role as one half of the Higgs/Osborne pairing alongside Lungfish vocalist Daniel Higgs. Prior to those affiliations, he participated in the southern Maryland music community via the groups the Clits and Pig. Unlike his earlier output, the Zomes work foregrounds modally based harmony and a purposeful lo-fi recording approach, elements that set it apart even though Osborne had helped shape the drone textures common in much post-rock of the twenty-first century. The project’s debut arrived as a self-titled album on Holy Mountain and received widespread critical praise. In spring 2011 the more exploratory Earth Grid followed on Thrill Jockey; the entire record was captured on cassette and later mastered by Bob Weston. Thrill Jockey subsequently released Improvisations, an expanded vinyl edition of a 2010 cassette originally issued by Imminent Frequencies—the same label that put out the 2012 tape Variations, Vol. 1. During a Swedish festival appearance in early 2012, Osborne encountered vocalist Hanna Olivegren through shared connections with Skull Defekts. She contributed spontaneous vocal lines over his organ drones during the performance, prompting the pair to continue collaborating. Their rapport led Zomes to become a duo, and together they recorded the more expansive 2013 album Time Was—the first Zomes sessions to take place in a professional studio and the first to feature vocals on the majority of tracks. In 2015 the duo issued the full-length Near Unison on a label bearing the same name. The following year they released the cassette Who Shall Be the Sun, drawing its title from the book by Northwest American poet David Wagoner.