November 25 / 2024 –

There’s nothing quite like OOMASOOMA. A longtime vet of the scene, Timo Ellis is the mastermind behind this dance/electronic/punk/hip-hop/you name it project. Ellis has recorded with all manner of musicians over the years, from Mark Ronson to Yoko Ono. And with OOMASOOMA’s debut album ENDLESS FUTURE, he steps out onto the scene with a chaotic, unusual, fresh new album that you truly have to hear to believe.

Real Goblin: This is your first album as OOMASOOMA but you’re far from new to the scene. Why now? What was it that made you finally release a solo project?

OOMASOOMA: hi, thank you… the following might only be known to someone who knows me personally (or who did a slightly deeper dive about me) …But I’ve actually been recording and (self) releasing solo albums using my birth/ given name (Timo Ellis) for many years prior to the release of ENDLESS FUTURE. 

however for the most part, I never did *any* pitching/ promoting/ conventional record release strategy, with any of these earlier albums; basically I would fully finish a record…and prior to the existence of the big streaming services, just make short runs of CDs (and sometimes cassettes) …and then just sell them (but mostly just give ’em away) within my extended community here in New York…and then just immediately move on to making the next record!  IE never slowing down the creation/ production process in any significant way. So for this reason, I have a reasonably gigantic catalog of fully finished, completely genre diverse solo albums (!) ..the majority of which have never been released on the big DSP’s. 

Basically the deal here is that I have a (totally) obsessive / hyper-focused music making practice…I’m currently sitting on 3 (!) other fully finished/ unreleased new solo albums…along with around 18 (!!) other previously recorded solo albums…all of which I *remixed from scratch* starting in March 2022, with the great @audiomq (Mario Quintero of the band SPOTLIGHTS) … and none of which have never been on Spotify! 

And IMO the extremely important factor here…is that none of these other records, I believe, could ever be identified as being part of any kind of previous musical “era”/ ever be associated with any musical trends, over the past 10+ years; so in this respect, regular listeners would/ will never know if a work was brand new, or several years old (and particularly since Mario made everything sound sonically glorious/ spectacular 😉 

…so relatively speaking, it’s a pretty unique (and, um, possibly somewhat bizarre?!) situation that I’ve created, in this context = having WAY, way *too much* completely finished/ until now properly released work! (+ I am currently working on a “macro release concept” here 😉 

Real Goblin: This is a pretty eclectic album with a clear variety of influences. Can you talk a bit about what the biggest inspirations were when making this project?

OOMASOOMA: The truth is I didn’t really have any specific inspirations before or while making this record…or even particularly believe in “inspiration” generally. As I just described above, I’m already many years into my whole creative and recording process and at this point I am basically entirely “following my own creative muse”, so to speak. 

in terms of ENDLESS FUTURE, the album just sort of naturally, gradually coalesced into what it became as I worked on it; I think I had a sense at the start, that there probably that there was gonna be some explicit tonal and musical variety on it… meaning that generally I wasn’t going to try to musically “narrow it down” into a more musically “genre consistent” album sequence; however in terms of long-term musical inspiration/ frame of reference…YES of course I am intuitively drawing from the traditions of rock, funk, indie rock, punk, metal, electronics, dance music(s)  … all of it! So in that respect there is a background of lifelong “musical inspiration” that I am more or less constantly drawing from. 

Real Goblin: You’ve worked with many artists over the years. What has your biggest takeaway been from that experience and how did it influence this album?

OOMASOOMA: This question is sort of hard to answer comprehensively, in a way? I’ve worked with so many different types of artists, that the sort of philosophical and ambient influences from each one, kind of vary dramatically; maybe the one thing that they almost all have in common, that’s gotten impressed upon me over and over again…is the need to be *extremely* ruthless with the tone and succinctness of a work; meaning, to be be willing to actually get rid of ANY element / idea (meaning even if you love it/ are extremely attached to it!) if it doesn’t serve the totality of a song, or collection of songs… which obviously can be an emotionally challenging and ego-busting experience (IMO) if one is actually rigorous about this. 

In my mind, the most important skill one has to develop as an artist, is the ability to ruthlessly EDIT… and then overall, just to be able to continually FINISH things! That, and the intuitive, discriminating awareness to know when a piece is being overcooked, overthought…or actually (also) is getting too perfect/ too good! Most of the strongest work (at least in my experience) comes out of the spontaneous first wave of improvisation/ expression of an idea, or musical figure; and especially these days with all the godlike, never ending technical abilities to be able to endlessly record overdubs/ process everything… the digital recording process (IMO) can very easily become a quagmire for some artists, who don’t have, (or who haven’t yet) developed the ability ….to be able to hunker down and actually finish things (and/ or the cutting-edge DAW tech paradoxically can make songs/ albums take WAY longer to finish!! etc.) 

IMO making good art/ music, and then making each successive collection as good, or *better* than the previous one…is an actually emotionally exhausting, and occasionally also painful process (as it should be, I believe.) *obviously many people might disagree with me about this = this is just “how I roll”! etc 😉 

Real Goblin: You have a lot of experience recording music. Was there anything about working on solo material that surprised you or challenged you in a way you didn’t expect?

OOMASOOMA: The visual analogy I always use to describe the entire creative/ album recording process is “climbing a mountain”; there will always be unknown things that happen along the way, spontaneous decisions or realizations, that happen as a result of mistakes (or distractions.) So in that respect, the entire process, (I believe at best) should be a forum for surprising oneself, + hopefully not (unconsciously or consciously) just repeating musical figures or ideas that an artist has already done, or heard before.

 + At the risk of getting a bit “woo woo” here…I sincerely believe that all music already exists in the universe…and that artists/ musicians are just channels/ vessels through which it manifests = through our minds, hearts, hands/ feet (as well as obviously/ simultaneously through our aesthetic/ taste sensibilities/”record collections”, etc. 😉 .. so in this respect, I always try to approach/ animate the whole process with a sense of adventure and spontaneity, because that’s what makes the whole thing especially fun (for me.) 

Real Goblin: What do you hope listeners take away from this album?

OOMASOOMA: Honestly, I just hope the people enjoy it! Joy, pathos, aesthetic pleasure, less isolation/ alienation…IE whatever the actual best case emotional and psychological effects are of well made music/ art! 

A sincere, active listen of ENDLESS FUTURE *will* definitely provide a pretty deep window into my weird world/ mind! 😉 haha … perhaps a taller order, but I would hope that listeners would also try to abandon whatever preconceived notions they had about me (or really about anything!) prior to listening.. meaning not to be overly cognitive, or critical, or be mentally “cross-referencing” (too much) while listening… in other words, to listen to it with their FULL attention, and not primarily as some kind of ambient/ atmospheric adjunct to their life (even though the record very much works, I believe, on that level as well.) 

ENDLESS FUTURE is extremely personal and has a near maniacal level of detail, which I believe warrants multiple/ repeated listens, in order to even begin to perceive…the level of, um, *insane* meticulousness that I render ALL my music with! 😉 haha…but again, I just hope people like it! And then share it with others  

Real Goblin: What does the future hold for OOMASOOMA?

OOMASOOMA: In terms of the future..+ especially in light of the extremely bizarre and terrifying/ dystopian US political climate (IMO) we now are all entering (again) …right now I guess I’m a little hesitant to talk, with any certainty…um, about ANYthing anymore?! haha  

I’m just going to continue to strategically share my (giant!) collection of (IMO) soulful, genre-fluid OOMASOOMA music with the world, in order to connect with/ enchant as large a number of humans as possible with it! + I believe it’s only a matter of time before I connect with a much larger number of “my people”, so to speak, in this context; and for this I am extremely grateful, and genuinely excited. thank you !!