Matador

Zoh Amba will release their Matador debut album Eyes Full on June 5th. It is an album of tough and soulful songs that feel like a pure transmission from the heart.

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.”

For years, Amba tried to find an identity outside of where they came from. Raised in the mountain towns of Tennessee, they left at seventeen for San Francisco, then moved to New York City soon after. Yet no matter how far they traveled, home always wrapped itself around their ankle. “When you try to run from something it ends up catching up to you,” they say now, speaking in a thick Southern drawl they no longer attempt to hide. “And you have to deal with it.”