Birth of Omni, by Birthmark

Birth of Omni

by Birthmark

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Giovanni There's something haunting and addictive about this album that has me leaving it on repeat. Favorite track: Baby Woncha Come on Home.

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1.	Snowflake in My Palm (Not For Long) 02:42 video	lyrics	buy track
Is your life my suicide? Is your life what keeps me alive? Feel all your pain multiply Give you a name and imperfect bloodline What could I give you if you want to leave? You never asked to be here This is all a hallway to another empty room but you can’t go without me Who will save you from the darkness in me?
2.	Butterfly 04:56	lyrics	buy track
Help me. Feel free – so free that you're floating! Don't care, don't see, no one's looking And I want that moment Hold that for a moment Feel that for a moment Break free from my shortcomings Let go and rise up above them Squirm around on the floor in an attempt to transform I’m coming apart Help me change Look out – I’m trying not to breathe The beauty undisturbed Crushed beneath a brick but then you landed on my sleeve Butterfly, help me change Look in – the cage is just a dream reflection in the dirt Crushed beneath a brick but then you landed on my sleeve Butterfly, help me change Eyelash kisses Feather down your spine I’m wearing your lipstick Tracing your outline and it looks like mine Help me change, butterfly Eyelash kisses linger on your skin I'm wearing your lipstick I’m your worst enemy – masculine
3.	Birthday (Product of Our Lust) 05:30	lyrics	buy track
Raynbo Rainbo Raenbo Reynbo Feel the pull from deep inside Swimming in the astral brine Water-based and cranberry pie Sure was fun planning your birthday Welcome to beautiful Hollywood Followed a girl there once Almost had a kid with her once At least I think I did but she might’ve lied and now I think about it everyday at least once While I cuddle my sweet cheeks While I cuddle my gummy bear And it kills me It killed me Hold me Swing me Introduce me I’m an experienced father Who’s forcefully, remorsefully, staying alive Anything you need I’ll build you a bridge just to float underneath it I’ll burn it right down to the ground We can read by the fire I’m here to show you colors Product of our lust
4.	Rodney 04:18 video	lyrics	buy track
I got a thing for Rodney, Rodney I’m imagining a place with you, Rodney Hold me captive. Hold me underneath, Rodney Our adventure can’t be over yet, Rodney See my beautiful wife In my beautiful house These are my beautiful children No, I can’t sneak out Can I shake your hand? Make you laugh out loud? I want to be with you No one can ever find out
5.	Baby Woncha Come on Home 02:26	lyrics	buy track
Every light is on but all the rooms are empty except one Oh babe don't stay too late You know I hate to be alone and I'm alone Baby woncha come on home There's a madman standing on the corner And he keeps on looking at my window Oh baby woncha come on home Home Every key is turned And every window's bolted from inside Oh babe you know I get so scared You know I couldn't live alone, it's just been confirmed Baby woncha come on home Standing on the corner Is a madman looking at my window Oh baby woncha come on home Home Baby woncha come on home There's a man Standing on the corner Now a shadow moves across the window Oh baby woncha come on home Baby woncha come on home
6.	Boyfriend 03:20 video	lyrics	buy track
Girl, when I met you I was a child Immature, insecure, running just to catch your smile We took the Mazda to outer space Lost track of the time but held on to the aftertaste I fell to your feet The two of us made a heartbeat Now all we need is rest I’m not the first to have you, but I’m the first to know you best – I’m your boyfriend Down on my knees like a husband would, dishes and the floors like a partner should, took our baby walking through the neighborhood, anything I could to be your boyfriend Down on my knees like a husband would, dishes and the floors like a partner should, took our baby walking through the neighborhood What you can’t, I could Girl, when I saw you I couldn’t stop Spent the whole summer bumbling around your flower shop Then you came over without your friend An overnight stay turned into a weekend Why me? Lean on me, make me feel like a man You can do what you want with your invisible hands – I’m your boyfriend
7.	Green Skies 00:52		buy track
8.	Red Meadow 06:35 video	lyrics	buy track
Look at you Look at me We were kids Carlo Rossi Celebrate your birthday every Halloween. I’ve been true to you – no makeup. But look at this This routine We only touch when we’re asleep Dreamt I was your roommate Yeah, I could play that part but we all have emotional needs Show me your emotions I belong to you and you belong above me We need a meadow to roll in We need a fire to start spreading It catches on, catches on I belong to you, I hold you up above me I don’t know what I’m standing on But I know to keep hanging on Is this you? Is that me? Is this how we thought it’d be? The clock is ticking remember we’re living in a little box on a hill there’s a fence and a treadmill No one gets in or out anymore since closing the only door We’re living in the daylight longing for the allure of the darkness I can change my hair, find some new old clothes to wear, sing in a flawless voice to you Show me your emotions
9.	I’m Awake 05:56	lyrics	buy track
I’m awake I have to know this time is such a golden time you won’t remember this The only rainbow I’ve witnessed I watched you start a shell Then bridge the distance to yourself You won’t remember this The only rainbow I’ve witnessed I’m awake Before you learn from pain Before you’re guided by your shame You won’t remember this The only rainbow I’ve witnessed If I could I would keep you here And we would repeat these years Don’t look away from this There’s only a rainbow if you see it R-A-I-N-B-O-W R-A-Y-N-B-O R-A-I-N-B-O R-A-E-N-B-O R-E-Y-N-B-O
10.	Pretty Flowers 05:42	lyrics	buy track
Do you think I’m pretty? This will be as pretty as I get I stopped checking the mirror a long time ago I don’t believe we’ve met I run scared, everyday I run scared on the elliptical I’m getting’ in shape – soon to be invisible I run scared and I run real slow I’m slowing down I’m shutting up I can’t talk I’m teaching a baby to walk I can’t talk now I’m teaching a baby to walk now Someday, she’s gonna run There’s a thing that I feel And it’s a hard thing to feel You’re the good that I feel The big good that I feel

about

Birth of Omni began in the dark. Five years ago, when Nate Kinsella began writing his fifth album under the name Birthmark, his world, like that of so many others, felt upside down. This was early 2018, a year into the Trump presidency and amid the ubiquitous American fever of mass shootings and racist violence. Just months earlier, the dawning revelations of the MeToo movement had jolted him, ending his naivete and giving him insight into how the women in his life often saw the men in theirs. Nearing 40, he was finally a father, too, with a newborn daughter and another on the way. Into what kind of world, he sensibly wondered, was he bringing these kids? Early songs wallowed in this anxious question, the dim start of what he thought might be a not-especially-uplifting EP.

But five years later, Birth of Omni is a kaleidoscopic wonder of sound and sentiment, asking the same question Kinsella first posed for himself but arriving at a surprising answer—maybe a better world, in fact, if only we can all be a little more open. Opportunities to grieve and fret overflowed, he reckoned, but he also wanted to celebrate the possibility of change, the joy of wonder, the essence of being. The result is the most dazzling and dynamic album of his storied career, with heavy beats and heavenly harps, cascading harmonies and quiet hymns, brutal noise and blissful arpeggios woven into 10 songs that capture the highs and lows, the vexations and victories of marriage, parenthood, and life itself. Maybe you’ve heard every Joan of Arc, American Football, LIES, and Make Believe record, but you’ve never heard Kinsella quite like this, because he’s never sounded quite like this—totally open to every idea and emotion, unrestrained as he tries to frame the future in whatever light he can find.

The sequence of upending events that yielded those first sketches didn’t end, of course. But when the pandemic began two years into work on Birth of Omni, Kinsella took its suspension of reality as an invitation to forget his own rules. He warped his voice with software until he questioned if it was still his, fluttering as it did through electric fractals or stretched until it seemed to trickle with sweat. And in a series of residencies in isolated cabins and the New York City art space Pioneer Works, he dove in and out of genres like never before, fusing ASMR readings and sampled voicemails to mutated disco and cherubic pop and orchestral emoting. A panoply of guests and friends—Arone Dyer, Greg Fox, Jeff Tobias, Richmond’s Spacebomb crew, among many others—helped him reach these unexpected syntheses. What was the past in a present so unprecedented?

Birth of Omni is rooted in parenthood—specifically, the way it reflects back on one’s own prerogatives or prejudices. His voice distended into a codeine drip, Kinsella wonders during opener “Snowflake in My Palm (Not for Long)” if giving his time and attention to his kids means the end of his own life, or the thing that actually makes him matter. During “Butterfly,” as beautiful as an early Sufjan Stevens symphony, he cavorts with his giggling daughters in the backyard, only to realize that their innocent game of chase presages the way they may one day need to flee some toxic dude. (A cover of Joan Armatrading’s secretly devastating “Baby Woncha Come Home,” sung by Dyer, affirms such encounters.) Can his kids, as he sings, “help me change”?

“I’m Awake” steadily rises from a piano meditation on memory and ontology into an ode to maintaining a sense of innocence even as experience comes. Kinsella and his kids work through the spelling of “rainbow” until they get it right; the song shudders brilliantly, the future opening like a break in ominous clouds. There’s that change, cast in love. One track later, however, gunshots cutting through the sound of screaming children interrupt closer “Pretty Flowers.” It’s an honest reflection of the doomsday reel that runs through this new father’s mind when it wanders, a jarring reminder of life’s real stakes. But “Pretty Flowers” returns in a tribute to his children, to “the good that I feel.” It’s Birth of Omni’s arc, cast in miniature.

Many of these songs confront the realities of aging, or the exigencies of long romantic relationships morphing into domestic partnerships. He ponders how to recapture a bit of that youthful lust in “Red Meadow,” offering up what he can—new clothes, a haircut, a romp in a field—to disrupt their routine “in a little box on a hill.” But during “Boyfriend,” he coos like Usher about washing dishes and taking babies on neighborhood walks; it is a fully adult seduction, Kinsella saying come hither above rattling bass and ricocheting synths, apron still on. Roles and the relational bonds between us change, he realizes, and it’s up to us to make good on that.

Indeed, as he worked on Birth of Omni, Kinsella reckoned with his own sexuality, coming to grips with the acceptance that he’d never really fit into the social straitjacket of masculinity he’d tried to don neatly for 40 years. Now with a family and approaching middle age, could he admit that he was more than someone’s straight husband? Could he deal with it? The gorgeous and compulsive “Rodney” is a lustful song for the would-be paramour that gives the track its name, countered by Kinsella’s awareness that maybe the escapades of his youth are behind him, that he’s got other commitments in his life. Shudder to Think’s Craig Wedren backs Kinsella here, playing the real role of the supportive voice who has been here before. We make choices for those we love, Kinsella affirms during “Rodney,” but the adventures of our imaginations can and should remain endless.

Kinsella has a confession about Birth of Omni: No one may care about what he calls his “dad record,” his reckonings with approaching middle age, or the manifold musical fascinations of his chameleonic songs. Perhaps that’s bad for business, he admits, especially since Polyvinyl has been such a steadfast advocate of his work. But isn’t that kind of vulnerability and self-reckoning the point of Birth of Omni, to make yourself and hopefully your kids and maybe even the world a little better by being honest about and open with yourself? After all, he wrote, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered this album alone, because these are notes to self, personal reminders of how he wants to exist moving forward. Birth of Omni began in the dark, but it exists now in the full light of an essential reality: Our roles change, as do we. There’s hope in knowing there’s still somewhere else to go.

credits

released January 19, 2024

Written and performed by Nate Kinsella

“Baby Woncha Come on Home”
Written by Joan Armatrading, lead vocal by Arone Dyer

Additional Musicians and Personnel:

Melina Ausikaitis – Voice (track 3)
Joachim Badenhorst – Clarinet & Bass Clarinet (track 1)
Jamie Burns – Voice (tracks 3, 7, 10)
Starr Busby – Voice (tracks 2, 3, 9)
Pinson Chanselle – Drums (track 3)
Majel Connery – Voice (track 2)
Marilu Donovan – Harp (tracks 2, 3, 9, 10)
Kristina Dutton – Violin (tracks 2, 3, 4)
Arone Dyer – Voice (tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9)
Greg Fox – Drums (track 1)
Amy Garapic – Marimba (track 9)
María Grand – Tenor Saxophone (tracks 1, 3, 10)
Devonne Harris – Clavinet (track 3)
Gina Izzo – Flute (tracks 2, 3, 9, 10)
Leeila Burns Kinsella – Heartbeat & Voice (tracks 1, 3, 5, 9, 10)
Dagny Burns Kinsella – Voice (tracks 2, 10)
Sam Kulik – Trombone (track 10)
Ann Malinowsky – Voice (track 3)
Chris McQueen – Guitar (tracks 3, 4)
Alan Parker – Guitar (track 3)
Mary Prescott – Piano (track 1)
Cameron Ralston – Bass (track 3)
Ben Russell – Violin (track 8)
Slight Sounds ASMR – Voice (track 1)
Jeff Tobias – Bass Clarinet (track 9)
Alicia Walter – Voice (track 6)
Craig Wedren – Voice (track 4)
Paul Wiancko – Cello & Viola (track 8)

William Brittelle – Production Advisor
Shervin Lainez – Photo
Amber Leone – Management
Adrian Olsen – Additional Engineering (track 3)
John Samels – Design & Layout

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