Left: Michael Isaak Right Ellisiv Berg
Post-punk group Sin Oma is simmering quietly in the cauldron. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble: this hefty brew concocted in the wilds of Los Angeles (by way of the bowels of Hell) features a rotating cast of solid musicians and notable guests.
Anxious to work in a band format, lead singer and lyricist Michael Isaak created Sin Oma with synth player Ellisiv Berg and drummer Arno. The core trio made their debut in early 2020 at Mikey Bean’s Phantoms: The Rise of Death Rock from the LA Punk Scene book release party at LA’s Lethal Amounts.
The book, which reads as a bible on the subject, includes Isaak, who presents The Other Woman as an homage to the spirit of LA death rock. Given out as a free lathe cut picture disc on his own Sacred Hands Records, The Other Woman also features LA punk legends and key Christian Death figures. Guitarist Rikk Agnew is one; Gitane Debone also makes an appearance on vox with Michael Isaak.
The single was praised as an “infernal sabbath” of Rikk Agnew’s guitar painting “pictures of horror”, Gitane DeMone’s tone sounding even more” fascinating” in time, and delineated Michael Isaak’s vocal delivery to “a kind of Steve Rawlings of The Danse Society on quaaludes sure to kill many black mohawked kids on the dance floor.”
The paradox is even more pronounced in the band’s moniker. Based on Isaak’s love of cinema, is the play of words “sin” and “oma.” Oma means “grandmother” in German, which conjures up lighter images of both innocence and wisdom, with sin representing transgressions and the darker side.
Arno’s tribal drumming and Ellisiv Berg’s sinister composition on synth shatter expectations of what the collaboration might bring. The variety of musicians give each song a life of its own, rooted by Berg and Isaak. Arno’s drumming embellishes each track with a dynamic, wall-of-sound arena feel. Ellisiv Berg (MOTH), sculpts a haunting mood and atmosphere with each piece.
The Australian Isaak previously collaborated with Italian band Testing Vault for his first album, God Ebbles. Inspired by notes from the collaborator’s dreams, Comte de Lautréamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror, and the esoteric cults of World War II, the surrealistic spoken word piece was described by a record store owner as “the most demonic album he’s ever listened to.”
Other Italian collaborations include another release with Testing Vault titled The Flogsta Scream and a series of Italian sutras with avant-garde musician Moreno Padoan, and Italo kings Fred Ventura and Paolo Gozzetti of Italoconnection for remixes.
An eerie brew of some sinister sound. Check out The Other Woman below.
There is a special limited of 100 edition Lathe Cut of SIN OMA’s The Other Woman available now.
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