In April, Zoh Amba announced their Matador debut album Eyes Full, out June 5th, an album of tough and soulful songs that feel like a pure transmission from the heart.
Today, Amba shares the album’s pensive and darkly hypnotic title track, a song about what makes someone’s heart full and questioning why. It’s accompanied by a video directed by Grace Bader Conrad, featuring Amba and album musicians Jim White (drums) and Kevin Hyland (electric guitar), watch here.
Eyes Full is distinctly, instinctively tied to Zoh’s hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee and the rediscovery of their first instrument, the guitar. The album courses with a type of muddy, loose acoustic blues, punctuated with bursts of feedback-laden electric guitar and sweet burnishes of Appalachian folk. It’s a remarkable turn for an artist who has already become one of the most exciting saxophonists to emerge from NYC’s avant-garde scene.
In music, Amba is always striving for greater proximity to the divine. On Eyes Full, they’ve never come closer. Every song circles the idea of seeing and being seen. The record looks closely at the lives of working-class folk in small towns who bust their asses off while trying to find any salvation they can. “I hope these songs touch people’s hearts,” Amba says. “They’re about people who really need to be seen and heard.”
The record was tracked live at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, an hour from Amba’s hometown, with no overdubs. Their best friend Kevin Hyland plays electric guitar, while drummer Jim White, whom Amba met on the streets of New York years earlier and now calls the closest thing they’ve had to a family, plays drums. The three musicians rehearsed relentlessly, playing together all day, every day, “until we got real tight,” says Amba. White and Amba play interlocked, while Amba and Hyland weave around one another, Amba playing rhythm and Hyland playing lead; currents of life running alongside one another.
Eyes Full is a lesson in how to look and to stay open to the universe, and to all the hearts that inhabit it. Through Amba’s gaze, the album restores spirit and dignity to those who are often overlooked or dispossessed. Across Eyes Full, Amba sings for people who rarely see themselves reflected back with tenderness. The music carries an ache for communities pushed to the margins, for those growing numb or losing touch with their innermost sense of self. These songs insist on sustained attention: on looking closely, meeting another person’s gaze, and refusing to look away.
Stream / download ‘Eyes Full’ here.
Pre-order / pre-save Eyes Full here.
