Nomo’s regional approach

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY

Nomo produced their first record in the classic tradition of Afro-beat founder Fela Kuti: fifteen people huddled together in a room, recording each song live together. They used everything that made Kuti famous, like huge horn arrangements and hypnotic guitar lines backed up by what sounds like a polyrhythmic army of drummers. In those earlier years the band would build up from there, finding connections between seemingly unrelated genres and artists, like how Head Hunters-period Herbie Hancock plays Sun Ra at his noisiest on “. . . Too Well.” Or how their recorded version of Joanna Newsom’s “Book of Right On”—from New Tones, their second album—sounds more like a tribute to Mulatu Astatke ’s Afro-Latin bossa nova than a tribute to Newsom’s harp folk.

On newest release Ghost Rock, however, frontman Elliot Bergman expands on the band’s sound by completely reinventing it. Bergman was for the most part alone in his home in Ann Arbor, the rest of the Nomo scattered around the country. As little more than a way to pass time, Bergman began creating hundreds of recorded loops using his own hand-built and designed percussion instruments: shakers, gamelans (giant Javanese xylophones) and mbiras (“They’re thumb pianos, basically,” says Bergman). Once compiled, the loops ended up laying the foundation for Ghost Rock, playing throughout songs like “Ring” and “Shades” like a syncopated metronome—simultaneously the background and backbone to the songs.

From there, the band built up even higher, introducing samplers, Konono N°1-style homemade psychedelia (on “Rings”) and traditional Yoruba 6/8 tribal rhythms (“Round the Way”). Tracks like “All the Stars” and “Three Shades” still interpret their signature Fela-style sounds with a broader approach, sifting through mountains of influences to create something wholly original. Which, to them is better than any comparison they could get. “People go up to us and say ‘You’re like the ’70s—it’s awesome!’” Bergman says. “It’s not awesome to me! I don’t want to be some phony recreation of music that happened 30 years ago. I want to carve out a space for ourselves.”

NOMO WITH DJS COCOE AND SCOTTY COATS DETROIT BAR | 845 W 19TH ST | COSTA MESA 92627 | 949.642.0600 | DETROITBAR.COM | SAT 9PM | $10 | 21+

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