Based in New York City by way of Beirut, Chicago, and Berlin, a sense of place is a major theme in Thoom’s music. Thoom has now found a home and creative community in New York’s burgeoning downtown scene having shared the stage with artists like Club Eat, Frost Children, and The Dare. But much of the EP’s content is inspired by Thoom’s first weeks living in New York during which she was overwhelmed by a recent heartbreak and isolation in a new city. It was this impulse that led her to accept a ride from a stranger cruising around Manhattan one late night during those early weeks. “I wanted to die but I was really horny. It’s what kept me alive.”
The EP’s title describes Thoom’s desire to overcome the dissociative numbness she felt during that time – to feel anything despite the costs. But in her pursuit, Thoom instead found a familiar face. The man who had picked her up was from Palestine and they bonded over growing up in the middle east before moving to New York. In Thooms words, “When you’re in search of things like that, the world has a tendency to hug you.”
The sonic palette of the EP, while indebted to New York icons like Lou Reed is also heavily influenced by Lebanese musicians from Thoom’s childhood such as Soapkills and Haifa Wehbe. But, in part due to production from Casey MQ (Oklou, Christine & The Queens, Flume) and owwwls (Princess Nokia, Azealia Banks), it’s a middle eastern sound filtered through a coat of camp. Ouds, neys, and other middle eastern instruments have gone through many layers of effects to sound like samples from an ancient time. With these over the top signifiers of the Middle East, the EP sometimes sounds like it could be an alternate soundtrack to Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy. This caricature of an old and exotic Middle East winks as it parodies a Western gaze while simultaneously embracing it.
