When Looms frontman Sharif Mekawy quit drinking a few years ago, he never thought about how it might affect his creative habits. “I wake up a lot earlier,” says Mekawy. “I really like writing in the early morning now.”
How that pre-dawn juju fed into the material on the Brooklyn-based quintet’s new LP is tough to gauge. But the upcoming Big Dream EP sure sounds like the work of a clear-eyed bunch at the height of its arty indie-rock powers. While Looms have collaborated with artists like Wilco’s Nels Cline over the years, Big Dream has an intimate, razor-focused feel that could only come from a band that’s dialed in and comfortable in the studio. As it turns out, the setting and in-house help were familiar: They returned to the Gearbox Recording Studio in Paramus, N.J., and engineer Ryan Ball (My Chemical Romance, Anthrax), who worked on their 2023 EP, The Dogs Of Doubt.
With its prog undertones and a frayed beauty, Big Dream’s latest single delves into Mekawy’s aforementioned struggles—when his alcohol consumption spun out of control during the pandemic.
“It was pretty hazy,” he says of the writing process for “On My Back.” “The song also deals with the middle part of a messy relationship, so there were a lot of unknowns at the time. I didn’t necessarily have a clear idea of what it was actually about until it was finished.”
We’re proud to premiere Looms’ “On My Back.” Look for Big Dream September 19 via Paper Garden.
—Hobart Rowland
