Playing at Proud Larry’s is almost a rite of passage in the Oxford music scene. Touring artists like Modest Mouse, the Black Keys and Mac Demarco have played sets in Proud Larry’s, and local artists like Bass Drum of Death, Dent May and Colour Revolt have all graced the Proud Larry’s stage before touring around the country.
On Friday, 18-year-old Andrew Newman will make his Proud Larry’s debut as Lo Noom, his solo project that he both writes and produces. Newman is from Hattiesburg and has been working on the project for a few years, releasing an album, “Groovy,” in 2015 and an EP in March of this year entitled “Pretty Woman.”
“Proud Larry’s is like the one place I’ve been wanting to play all my life, so it’s really exciting, but it’s also kind of nerve-wracking,” Newman said. “A lot of my favorite artists have played at Proud Larry’s, so it’s kind of like a dream come true to play my first show there.”
The name Lo Noom evolved from Newman’s twitter handle, but the project itself started when Newman started using the Logic Pro software on his computer to record and sample parts from other songs to make tracks.
While his first album heavily utilized electronics, Newman wrote “Pretty Woman” on his acoustic guitar, citing My Morning Jacket and Nick Drake as two of his influences for the EP. Newman said it was a new recording process for him.
“There’s a couple of synths in the EP, but other than that it’s acoustic guitar and a lot of stuff recorded with mics,” Newman said. “Compared to the first album it’s just a more organic feel and it’s easier to play live.”
On “Pretty Woman,” Newman only sampled a few Tame Impala drum tracks, but on “Groovy” he used samples from Sufjan Stevens, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Electric Light Orchestra and other artists to make the backing tracks for his vocals. Newman went into detail about the process for creating the album.
“Half of the songs on the first album, I chopped up different samples from different songs I found or different songs that I’ve always liked,” Newman said. “I would just assign little clips of different songs to different keys and I would just rearrange and manipulate them until they sounded really cool, and I would record guitar and synthesizer on top of it, and I would sample drums and put that with it, and then I would just write songs over it.”
In the future, Newman plans on eventually having a live band to play with him for shows and also wants to collaborate with rappers and other artists.
“If someone wants to come and work on something with me, and kind of like be hands-on with me like making a beat or something, or if they just want me to email them some samples of beats I’m definitely down to do that kind of stuff,” Newman said.
Newman is already planning out his next album, naming Radiohead and James Blake as some of the inspiration for the direction he was taking with the production. Newman said he has some songs ready to be released but is working on other tracks so they can all be released as a whole, though he might release some singles before the release.
“For this next project I’m trying to make a really techno kind of sounding album, or just like experimenting with cooler production,” Newman said.
Newman explained what he planned on doing to capture that feel for the album.
“Messing with really weird, unique sounds, trying to use less hackneyed rhythms or beats,” Newman said. “So non-traditional snares or kicks, just weird sounds; I’m trying to make that kind of stuff.”
Lo Noom plays with Group Text at Proud Larry’s this Friday with a $5 cover charge.
