the first place . This is one of the more electronically grounded songs he ’ s released , making heavy use of looping and vocal distortions to create a mesmerizing and anthemic track with soulful sensibilities . Currently , the single has nearly half a million streams on Spotify .
“ The album was supposed to be all out by May . But what happened was that we released that single , and then we were approached by a record label . We signed with them , and they wanted to push it back a little , so they had extra time to re-release that single . And then the release was pushed to August .”
I vaguely remember the mention of an upcoming EP release at Alphaville , but little concrete detail . It seems this show took place right at the peak of this battle between himself and his label . He called the situation “ a bummer ,” recalling the initial excitement that came with the prospect of major label distribution and the subsequent disappointment that resulted from realizing “ they just did a bad job .”
By now , O Mer and his manager , Ron Shpindler of Tron Management , are back to releasing the project independently . But this was not without the loss of an immense amount of time , an unfortunate consequence that I lamented on his behalf . He responded to my sympathizing with surprising positivity , calling it “ an experience worth having when you are first starting out .”
“ I don ’ t know why , but it felt like the more zen I got about it , the more I learned about it , and the more comfortable I got being a musician , which is a messed up job to have . It lacks structure , you know . Structure has to come from you .”
Internal structure seems to an important aspect of who O Mer is as a musician . He ’ s meticulous about how he comes across as an artist — he produces and perfects all of his own beats — and as a performer . But he ’ s also bent on sometimes relinquishing this structure at certain key moments , especially when performing . He bounces back and forth .
When I asked him how he came about his stage name , he said plainly , “ Well , it ’ s just my name .” But then , he began elaborating on the space between the letters — the structure of the word .
“ It comes from a bunch of different places . First of all , mer is like the ocean in French . And I ’ m not sure that I ’ m getting this right , but O in psychoanalysis can mean the undefinable — so a sea of undefinable stuff .” A sea of undefinable stuff . This seems to be an accurate way to describe his art , as every track bounces between rhythms and melodies , manipulating styles to create something unrecognizable to any specific genre . Before I could truly let that sink in , though , he quickly followed up with a second answer — explaining that splitting the syllables also encourages correct pronunciation : “ I mostly get called ‘ Omar ’ or ‘ Omir ’ or whatever else … I get a lot of ‘ Omen ’ too . But that ’ s more what it is . It ’ s just a pun and I like the way it looks . It ’ s a way to stay me without being completely myself .”
Like a lot of artists , he is looking for a way to separate the person from the performer : “ if you are performing … it doesn ’ t necessarily feel like it ’ s you that ’ s doing it . You kind of — especially when performing — you have to have another personality be the ambassador of whatever it is you did . And that split , I think , is necessary .”
This can be tricky territory to navigate for some , but he ’ s far from being a method actor . It ’ s more a matter of shedding one ’ s own artificialities , rather than adding on new ones . He noticed that , when he is performing , he allows himself to be “ a little bit more vulnerable ” and “ not as aware of [ his ] physicality .” In his opinion , as a performer , this is essential , “ otherwise , you ' re just getting in the way of the music . You have to give up the security of your elegance .”
The idea of a split came up time and time again . Besides the obvious split in his name , there are many other points where this idea of an intentionally fractured sense of self becomes crucial to understanding him . His nationality is another relevant example . He moved to Brooklyn nearly six years ago to pursue music , although he was already gaining recognition for being a session guitar player in Tel Aviv . He was very clear in explaining that this move was integral to his reinvention as an artist :
“ The goal wasn ’ t to become what I was in Israel , here … New York was kind of — I
www . clichemag . com should say Brooklyn — was kind of the way to get a clean slate . To be unknown . Israel was so small that I was known . It ’ s so tiny that I was just ‘ the guy that does the thing ’ by the time that I was 21 , playing guitar with singers .”
It ’ s no surprise that he chose to come to Brooklyn of all places to find himself as an artist . Combine the excitement of living in the city , which all but defines itself as the mecca of DIY music in the Northeast , with the promise of mainstream success and what you get is a manifestation of a musician ’ s American Dream . As if on cue , he said one of the main reasons he was excited about coming to New York “ was the whole independent scene going on in Brooklyn — Terrible Records , DFA , all that kind of stuff . Those labels . They seemed to be doing something that was really helping art be art , rather than commercial .” I could explain what happened on the label-front again , but then we would just be moving backwards . Besides being the location of some type of “ a cliché dream ” for catching a ‘ big break ,’ New York can also be a centrifuge for talent . It separates the impassioned from the passive , without any regard to external forces . O Mer commented that , for him , “ mostly what it did is it created an urgency [ within himself ] to make music . By the nature of life in Israel , where it was a little bit more slow and mundane … New York is just ten times more intense .”
But living in the city that never sleeps , the home of all dreamers , is overwhelming in more than one way . Anyone that ’ s ever stopped for a second in the street , and then been immediately bumped into can attest to this fact . That ’ s what makes it so paradoxical ; terrifying and beautiful all at once .
“ There ’ s something to be said about living far away from your home — just that basic parting . You kind of get this strange perspective about who you are that you
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