Finom

Finom is a byproduct of Chicago’s long-standing community of artists, collaborating in close quarters without the usual strictures of genre or scene; Finom is now, too, one of the city’s most invigorating bands. Both Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham come from artistic households, their mothers a professional pianist and painter respectively. Already students of piano themselves, the two met in high school, playing in bands of friends that again stemmed from that participatory Chicago spirit. “It’s a result of artists who lived here who are our parents’ age and the generation after them choosing to live and raise kids here,” Cunningham once said. After they discovered how natural it felt to sing together, they became a city favorite, playing the Pitchfork Music Festival and being lauded by Noisey’s Josh Terry as “the band at the heart of Chicago’s music community” before even releasing an LP, back when they were still called Ohmme. Their early records were magnetic and strange, indie rock infiltrated by engrained Chicago eccentricity.

Finom’s 2024 LP, Not God, took both attributes to new levels. Produced by longtime hero and champion Jeff Tweedy, the songs are so catchy that remembering them feels compulsory, from the biting taunt of opener “Haircut” to the New Wave funk of “Cyclops.” But each track brims with surprise, too, like the haunted country harmonies of “Naked” and the twisting licks and rhythms of “A Petunia.” What’s more, these songs conveyed the uncertainty and anger of the years that preceded them, with the title track lambasting strongmen and “A Petunia” mocking them. Cunningham and Stewart push for joy, though, whether singing about satisfying oneself on “Hungry” or looking for signs from the universe on “Cardinal.” Each half of Finom seems to maintain a half-dozen projects at once, from their own wondrous solo records to being in Tweedy’s touring band. But Finom remains a gripping testament to friendship and solidarity, to singing out frustrations in mighty harmony.