Finom (formerly known as OHMME, and Homme) is a rock band from Chicago formed by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist duo Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart in 2014.

Background

Both Cunningham and Stewart attended

Whitney Young Magnet High School Whitney M. Young Magnet High School is a public four-year magnet high school and middle school located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Opened on September 3, 1975, as a public magnet high school, joining Lane Tech in that ...

on the city's near west side. While Macie Stewart was in high school, she played keyboards and sang in Kids These Days. Adding electric guitar, Stewart co-founded Marrow with Cunningham's brother, Liam Cunningham (a.k.a. Liam Kazar), in 2013 after Kids These Days disbanded. As of 2020, Stewart also plays violin and keyboards, and sings, in Chicago's

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz, experimental jazz, or "new thing") is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through the late 1 ...

improvised music Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous ...

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

) community, including as a member of Marker, led by

Ken Vandermark Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered composit ...

. Cunningham sang with the

Chicago Children's Choir Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly the Chicago Children's Choir) is a non-profit organization, founded in 1956 at First Unitarian Church of Chicago. Organization Founded in Hyde Park in 1956, Uniting Voices has grown from one choir into a network ...

, and performed in the band The Audians while in high school. Since 2008, Cunningham has played and sung in bands, toured and recorded as a backup singer, worked on solo projects, and curated music festivals. Both Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart have released solo albums. From 2017 through 2020, Cunningham and Stewart—often along with Ken Vandermark, , , and Cunningham's brother Liam Kazar (Cunningham)—usually participated in the annual winter performances in Chicago of the Yes We Can Band led by and , which covers New Orleans rhythm & blues/

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

tunes, particularly those of

Allen Toussaint Allen Richard Toussaint (; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer. He was an influential figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the end of the century, descr ...

and the

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. As of 2021–2022, Cunningham, her brother Liam Kazar (Cunningham), and others frequently join

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's Cosmic Country Showcase band in Chicago and

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

History

According to Cunningham, OHMME/Finom started because "we knew we could sing well together, and we wanted to make some noise with the guitar." Both artists are trained as classical pianists and were familiar with the scope of sonic spaces keyboards had to offer but, according to Stewart, "since we were interested in experimenting and creating something different from what we had both done in the past, we chose guitar as our outlet for this band. We wanted to create parameters for ourselves that were both new and uncomfortable to force ourselves into a different creative space”. OHMME/Finom have been touring both nationally and internationally since January 2016, including playing

Pitchfork Music Festival Pitchfork Music Festival was an annual music festival in Union Park (Chicago), Union Park in Chicago, Illinois, organized by the online magazine ''Pitchfork (website), Pitchfork.'' Starting in 2011, the festival announced a branch staged in Paris ...

in 2016. They have toured with

Jeff Tweedy Jeffrey Scot Tweedy (born August 25, 1967) is an American musician, singer songwriter, author, and record producer best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the band Wilco. Tweedy, originally from Belleville, Illinois, began his music care ...

Wilco Wilco is an American Rock music, rock band based in Chicago. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo after singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup changed frequently during its fir ...

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, and The Ophelias. In 2016, OHMME added, for live performances, drummer Matt Carroll, who had also worked with Cunningham and Stewart in the band Marrow. OHMME released their first single on November 13, 2015, a self-titled EP in 2017, and two full-length albums: ''Parts'' in 2018 and ''Fantasize Your Ghost'' in 2020. OHMME have vocal and instrumental credits on projects of other musicians, including

Chance the Rapper Chancelor Johnathan Bennett (born April 16, 1993), known professionally as Chance the Rapper, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he released his debut mixtape '' 10 Day'' (2012) during one of his high school suspension ...

Thor Harris Thor Harris (born February 7, 1965) is an artist, sculptor, musician, painter, carpenter and handyman. He was the percussionist for Swans (2010–2016). He has performed with Shearwater (2001–2010), Bill Callahan, The Angels of Light, Li ...

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, Ken Vandermark, V.V. Lightbody (Vivian McConnell), and

Whitney Whitney or Whittney may refer to: Film and television * ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta * ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston * ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that ...

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dubbed OHMME "the band at the heart of Chicago's music community." After OHMME played a

Tiny Desk Concert ''Tiny Desk Concerts'' is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of former '' All Songs Considered'' host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first ''Tiny Desk Concert'' came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music ed ...

spot for NPR,

Bob Boilen Bob B Boilen (born April 10, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American musician and media personality. He was the host and creator of NPR's online music show ''All Songs Considered'' and the co-creator of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts, a series ...

(TDC curator and producer of

All Songs Considered ''All Songs Considered'' is a weekly online podcast and radio program hosted by Robin Hilton. It was created in January 2000 by NPR's ''All Things Considered'' then-director Bob Boilen and produced by Robin Hilton beginning in 2001. At first, ...

) remarked that it was among the best performances of the series. ''Fantasize Your Ghost'', OHMME's second full-length album, was released on June 5, 2020 by

Joyful Noise Recordings Joyful Noise Recordings is an independent record label with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The label was founded in 2003 in Bloomington, Indiana by Karl Hofstetter, who also played drums on several of the label's first releases. Joyful N ...

. In October 2020, OHMME released a concert film of the ''Fantasize Your Ghost'' material, plus two songs from a new single, with additional musicians (drums), Ruby Parker and Quinn Tsan (backing vocals), and V.V. Lightbody (backing vocals and flute), but without Matt Carroll; the film was recorded at and subsequently livestreamed (via

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

) from

Constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

in Chicago. In December 2021 in Chicago, Cunningham, Stewart, and Alex Grelle inaugurated "Full Bush", a theatrical tribute to

Kate Bush Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer. Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after David Gilmour of Pink Floyd helped produce a demo tape. In 1978, at the ...

, written by Grelle and Jesse Morgan Young. By late 2021, OHMME had expanded its touring band. In 2021, 2023, and 2024 performances, the duo were accompanied by

Spencer Tweedy Tweedy is an American rock band composed of Jeff Tweedy, from the group Wilco, and his son, Spencer. The duo has released one album, ''Sukierae,'' in 2014. The elder Tweedy had planned ''Sukierae'' to be a solo record, but kept Spencer involved ...

on drums and V. V. Lightbody on guitar, flute, and bass, but without Matt Carroll. The duo announced in August 2022 that they had changed their name from OHMME to Finom, for legal reasons, and that they would embark on a nine-date tour of the eastern United States the following month. On October 16, 2023, Finom re-released their debut album, titled OHMME. As of 2024 and 2025, Finom continue to tour and to perform locally in the Chicago area, sometimes with a full band and sometimes as a duo.

Equipment

In interviews, Cunningham and Stewart have described some of the musical equipment that they use, especially

Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporati ...

guitars and various pedals. As of 2019, Stewart often uses an Electro-Harmonix Octave Multiplexer pedal to substitute for a bass guitar.

Band members

*Sima Cunningham – vocals, guitar *Macie Stewart – vocals, guitar, violin, bass Live-performance musicians *Matt Carroll – drums (2016–2020) *Spencer Tweedy – drums (2021–present) *V.V. Lightbody (Vivian McConnell) - bass, guitar, vocals (2020–present)

Discography

Albums

* '' Parts'' (

, 2018) * '' Fantasize Your Ghost'' (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2020) *''OHMME'' (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2023) *''Not God'' (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2024)

EPs

* ''S/T'', a.k.a. ''OHMME'' ( Fox Hall Records/

Overcoat Recordings Overcoat Recordings is an American record label specializing in alt country and indie rock music. It is based in Chicago, Illinois, and its owner is Howard Greynolds, who was formerly an employee of Thrill Jockey. Kingsbury Manxat Allmusic.com Arti ...

, 2017) * ''OHMME + The Aubreys'' ("split": 2 songs each by the 2 bands, self-released, 2020)

Singles

* "Furniture" (2015) * "Wheel" (Overcoat Recordings, 2017); also self-released on split single with

Poliça Poliça (often stylised in all caps) is an American pop band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, formed in 2011. The band consists of Channy Leaneagh (vocals, synth), Chris Bierden (bass), Drew Christopherson (drums) and Ben Ivascu (drums), with Ryan ...

: ''Crate Diggers in Chicago'' (2017) * "Fingerprints" (2017) * "Woman" (2017) * "Icon" (2018) * "At Night" b/w "Gimme Back My Man" (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2019) * "Mine" b/w "Miasma" (

Sub Pop Sub Pop is an independent record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. Sub Pop achieved fame in the early 1990s for signing Seattle bands such as Nirvana (band), Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, central players in the gru ...

, 2020) * "Girl Loves Me" (written by

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

) b/w "Some Kind of Calm" ( Kahiem Rivera remix) (Joyful Noise Recordings via bandcamp, digital only, 2021)

Multiple-artist compilations

* "Homicidal Hamsters" on ''Safe In Sound (Home Recordings From Quarantine)'' (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2020)

References

External links

Finom's website

Finom's label's website

Macie Stewart's website
{{authority control American rock guitarists American women guitarists Musicians from Chicago Joyful Noise Recordings artists American all-female bands Musical groups established in 2014 2014 establishments in Illinois