featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
June 9, 2026
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
IF YOU ONLY LiSTEN to ONE RECORD THiS WEEK
For their seventh record, their first for the Matador label, Zoh Amba chose to set aside the saxophone with which they had built their reputation as an improvisational player. Eyes Full (Matador) presents the Tennessee artist as a primitive visionary, a vehicle for the unfiltered light of music. In this sense, even without the sax, singing from a wild and unschooled place, hammering at their acoustic guitar, this is much the same Zoh Amba that we hear wailing away in an Italian church at the end of "Child You'll See".
In a recent interview, Zoh Amba explains, Everything I was trying to do with the saxophone music is everything I'm trying to do in this. For Eyes Full, they've gathered a small but essential team of apostles, including electric guitarist Kevin Hyland, bassist Lawson Alderson (from MJ Lenderman's band) and visionary drummer Jim White, with whom Amba played as Beings. On "Smile With Your Eyes", the acoustic strings chug like a train straining to gain speed. The trio recorded the songs live in studio, forgoing overdubs or enhancements. "Dead End Street" rages with free-range energy, an engine that also drives the title cut. Like the unrestrained spirit that characterizes their horn playing, Amba's voice is pure expression, a bold and raw delivery that can be shocking, even abrasive.
Yet that's the beauty of Zoh Amba's new session, the confidence and unadultered place that make songs like "Southern Soil" almost devotional. Those who need to classify Eyes Full could point to the record's most direct moment as a folksong, rooted like many of their new tunes in the sometimes harsh realities of their native Tennessee. Reportedly the survivor of a rough and uncertain upbringing, Amba counsels their mother and father, You ain't gotta keep those secrets. There is a definite sweetness and light on "Another Time", as the singer reaches toward God in and through people on the street: Saw you on the street / You were playing guitar / You were looking at all the eyes that passed / You were looking for god.
Zoh Amba selected their current name as an expression of their monastic Hinduism, and this pervasive openness to God and spirit shines throughout their music and interviews. Loose comparisons could be made to Adrianne Lenker's work with Big Thief, or even to Karly Hartzman's savage expression with Wednesday. But Eyes Full captures a specific moment in the restless artistic journey of a genuine original. I hope that people can come and give the music a chance, they have said, and let it sit in their heart. If they give it a chance, the music will grow a flower in the heart. I promise.
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