New Music: Tamar Berk – stay close by

Tamar Berk gears up for the release of ocd – her fifth solo album in as many years – by following up the title track with another featured single, stay close by.

The rock motifs of the arrangement contrast markedly with the vulnerability of the vocals and lyrics on stay close by, as Berk shifts the softer tones of dream pop and shoegaze into a place that is both comforting and unsettling, exposing fears even as it shows a way forward.

Maybe there is something of Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan about the driving force behind the song, but on stay close by, Berk shows herself equal as well to the tragedian rock of Ethel Cain and Angel Olsen.

Reveals Berk about the LP, “ocd is my fifth studio album in five years, and somehow it feels like the most personal and intense one yet. I’ve always written from a place of deep reflection, but this album digs into the spirals: my anxiety, obsessions, fears, memories, dreams, all of it. It’s raw, loud, messy, sometimes funny, sometimes devastating. Just like my mind.”

“Sonically, it’s a fuzzed-out, reverb-heavy swirl, somewhere between indie pop-rock and a fever dream. I didn’t want this to just be a collection of songs. I wanted it to feel like a map of everything I’ve been trying to untangle in my head.”

“I called it ocd because I live in loops. I overthink everything. But this record helped me make a little bit of beautiful sense out of that. If there’s a thread that runs through all my work, it’s that I try to turn emotional chaos into something melodic and honest. That’s what I’m doing here, inviting you inside the mess with me.”

Head to Bandcamp to pre-order ocd in digital, CD, and vinyl formats. For album updates and details of her Chicago gig on the 27th of September, follow Tamar Berk on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.