Recommendations of the Editorial team
Zoh Amba is coming to Germany and playing shows in Hamburg and Berlin in November. With the first single of a new chapter, Amba shows a previously unknown side: lurching blues, Appalachian folk influences and a voice that sounds raw and longing.
Until now, Zoh Amba (they/them) was known as one of the most exciting voices in the New York free jazz scene. With the single “Another Time”, released on April 8th, there is a radical break – or perhaps more like: a homecoming.
Guitar instead of saxophone
Instead of the tenor saxophone, Amba picks up the guitar and the microphone. The sound: melancholy indie rock with references to alternative folk, carried by hypnotically circling guitar figures and a voice that sounds rough, growling and almost crooked in places – and that’s exactly where its effect unfolds. It is a return to a musical language that Amba had developed in his hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee, long before the free jazz sessions in Brooklyn.
Debut – live and without overdubs
On June 5th, “Eyes Full”, the singer-songwriter debut album on Matador, will be released – recorded in Asheville, an hour from Kingsport, live and without overdubs. It’s an almost familial live recording: While Amba’s best friend Kevin Hyland plays the electric guitar, the legendary Jim White sits on the drums – a musician who is something like family for Amba.
The title track “Eyes Full” provides a first foretaste: a song about seeing and being seen. Because that’s exactly what the album is about. Amba’s gaze is focused on the workers of small towns, on people who struggle and look for salvation – “on people who absolutely need to be noticed,” as Amba herself says. It’s an album about those that no one else sees: outsiders, people who have been pushed to the margins of society. “Eyes Full” insists on paying attention to precisely these people.
Live dates in Germany
If you would like to experience Zoh Amba live, you will have the opportunity to do so on November 2nd at the Aalhaus in Hamburg and on November 3rd at the Kantine am Berghain in Berlin. ROLLING STONE presents.
