Name: OMA
Members: Corben Lamb (keys, production, mixing), Chris Larcombe (guitar), Sam Heeley (drums), James Harper (bass)
Interviewee: Corben Lamb
Nationality: British
Current release: OMA's new EP burnt. is out now.

If you enjoyed this OMA interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Instagram, bandcamp, and tiktok.



What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to creativity?

Self expression is why we are creative. It has been important to us that all parts of our output is done in-house ... the playing, the mixing, our videos.

To me, this means that everything we create is us expressing ourselves. Also for us, this turns each thing we output into a bookmark for that period of time in our lives, like a diary.

Where do most of your inspirations to create come from – rather from internal impulses or external ones? Which current social / political / ecological or other developments make you feel like you need to respond as an artist?

I am always on the lookout for things to find inspiration in. As I have gotten older, I have realised that the story of the art is becoming more and more important to me, and plays a big role as to how I resonate with it.

The state of the world right now is a lot; the politics, our phone addictions, AI. It’s an uncertain time to be alive, but music made by real people living real lives is an important escape, and thankfully it’s always been there and always will be.

What role do electronic tools and instruments, including AI, play for your creative process?

We are big into Ableton, it’s hands down the best DAW for us. And the Universal Audio interface / plugins are incredible, they’ve have taught us a lot (about hardware that we’ll never be able to afford).

There’s a new instrument called the Orchid, made by Telepathic Instruments and pioneered by Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), one of my production heroes. It hits the sweet spot between an electronic tool and analogue one.

It’s dope to me that they’ve managed to find this new way of expressing your ideas AND have nailed the way it actually sounds. We used it all over ‘burnt.’, I think all the synths on ’99 one hundred.’ are from the Orchid.



And we are proud to say that our music is AI free, and always will be.

That being said, when the AI art generation first came out a few years ago, I found it really exciting, as I’m trash at drawing but have always loved animation. So at the time, I did find a way to express myself using AI, and I really enjoyed it. And I do use Chat GPT often when I have technical questions (about mixing, equipment, etc) - I’ve found its pretty good for that.

I have no doubt that AI will open up doors for people who want to create music but haven’t had any experience doing so. Everyone is capable of expressing themselves artistically, and I’m all for tools that make that easier and more accessible.

AI COULD be cool, and could create whole new genres of music that wouldn’t be achievable without it. However, if we just use it to churn out mindless versions of what we already have, and crank the brain-rot dial up even higher, it’s gonna suck.

Tell me a bit about the sounds & creative directions, artists & communities, as well as the colleagues & creative hotspots of your current hometown, please. How do they influence your music?

OMA was formed in Manchester, England, and we all lived there together for six years. It has been a great place for us, we’ve met a lot of great people and done a lot of growing here.

In particular our homie Kurran Karbal. We were his band whilst we were at uni, and he taught me a lot about creating art as a whole. Just the act of watching someone so clearly and effortlessly express themselves through their music really re-jigged the way I was thinking about things and what I thought was important.

My brother Oscar has also taught me a lot about music, and about hip hop. OMA as individuals have always been into so many different genres of music, but Oscar has always had his head deep in the hip hop world. He put us onto DOOM and Madlib, which was the first thing that inspired us to play hip hop as a group in the first place.

He also introduced us to anime, Nujabes, and our now good friend Shing02, which has changed our lives really!

How do you see the role of sampling in hip hop today?

We love to make beats with samples and it’s become a really cool jumping off point for us.

We all individually make beats using samples now, and then bring them to the group. Having played so many hiphop tracks together, reinterpreting is one of our real strengths now, so flipping our own beats back onto our instruments has opened up a new avenue for us.

I don’t really feel like I can comment on hip hop as a wider scene, so many people are making amazing stuff in all different kinds of ways.

However, my favourite thing about sampling is that it allows me cut straight to the feeling of the music I’m making, and removes a lot of the self doubt that can creep in when you’re making music. It often feels even more expressive to me than playing an instrument.

There has always been a close connection between hip hop and jazz. What role does improvisation play in your current creative process?

We improvise a lot, I don’t think you can make music without some kind of improvising to be honest.

We will sit together and someone will play something, and the rest of us will improvise a part until we each land in something that makes the music feel cohesive.

It is much more part orientated to us, we’re not big into improvising solos.

From Star Wars via The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the Fifth Element, there have always been amusing sci fi ideas about how music could look like at some point. For a not too distant future, where do you personally see it going?

I was actually named after Korben Dallas from Fifth element, although I've never seen it. I'm waiting for the right moment to present itself.

Unfortunately I don’t see the use of AI in art going away, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. But to me, it is the human connection that makes music so poignant. I really couldn’t fall in love with an AI artist like I do a human artist.

However, I think people (labels especially) will likely use AI to generate songs, and stick a human in front of it to mask the AI involvement, which will be a shame. Honestly if all this AI stuff is used in a malicious way I think the pendulum will go fully in the opposite direction, and the more imperfect and human the art feels the more popular it will be.