Loma just happened. As contrary to manufactured as imaginable, the band came to exist after Cross Record and Shearwater toured together and discovered they loved making music together as well. Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg started taking week-long trips out to a ranch in Texas where Dan Duszynski and Emily Cross were living at the time. The songs just got recorded. The record just happened to get put out by Sub Pop, one of the country’s premier indie labels and the home of Shearwater. It just unfolded organically. These were just people taking one small step after the next.
So, when the band played a surprise secret show at Radio in early April, that was the band’s first show ever. And I should have known. I should have realized that the show would defy all expectations. Both Shearwater and Cross Record have tendencies for taking their recorded material and pushing them to a whole new level for the live show. Both bands write songs with careful nuanced instrumentation that build tension and crescendo, unfurling magnificently. I should have realized how mind blowing the live set would be, but I didn’t. I thought it would be beautiful. I thought it would be transfixing and careful and intricate. And it was. The delicacy of “I Don’t Want Children” had me practically weeping. But it was also incredibly forceful and muscular in ways I just didn’t see coming.
Between the time I saw Loma’s first show at Radio and their second show at the ND a few weeks later, the band got even better. And they introduced a performative aspect of the show, during which Emily Cross walks over to a large notepad on an easel and creates a drawing as the band continues to perform the instrumental aspects of two different songs. Plainly put: the show is breathtaking.
Not to detract from Loma’s outstanding debut album, but part of me wonders what the album would have sounded like if the band had formed and played and toured (as most bands do) before recording these songs. Again, the record is phenomenal in its own right, but there’s something touring behind songs does to them that allows bands to sharpen and strengthen aspects of songs. That said, there are simply some limitations to the sonic range of recorded material that disappear when a band performs live. Maybe Loma is just so talented and creating the sounds in a live setting that recorded material can never capture that greatness.
To recap: either Loma is too pure for this world and the fates had to ensure they recorded these songs before touring them so we wouldn’t all have our brains melted, or these musicians are so talented at creating sound live that studio recordings will never capture their total ability. Either way, I think it’s clear that you should make seeing the band a priority. And while I slacked on getting this up promptly after the show in mid-April, the good news is that the band still has a week in the Northeast and Midwest and then heads off to Europe for another leg of the tour.
As an added bonus from the show at the ND, Jess Williamson opened the night, displaying her set of brand new songs, Cosmic Wink, which will see release this summer. Williamson has taken her sound in a whole new direction, leaving some of her experimental leanings behind and angling toward West Coast country and 70s pop. It sounds incredible, and I can’t wait for the album.
Check out photos from both shows below. All photographs © Bryan C. Parker & Pop Press INTL. Click any image to open set in slideshow viewer.
