Novum Ovum is the second full-length album by Saba Lou. Saba Lou is the daughter of garage rock icon King Khan and will release Novum Ovum on the Ernest Jenning Record Co. label in October 2019. This album takes on a different musical approach than its predecessor. While there are some of the same influences, her first album Planet Enigma released in 2017, was more of an acoustic based record mixing elements of folk and 60s rock. What Novum Ovum brings is full band arrangements that mix an early R&B soul influence and elements of jazz and blues.
“Primrose Diner” begins the album with smooth guitar lines, soulful basslines and a laidback groove. Saba Lou sings of a waitress working in a diner and the revolving cast of characters that drift through. The song reveals a character that is willing to do anything to spend some time with the waitress she admires and has fallen for, but is ultimately intimidated by. The chorus takes off with the lines “Please let me take you away/Just for the night if I may” as the song launches into a feeling that casts shadows of romanticism and hope. “Primrose Diner” evokes an Etta James aesthetic mixed in with a bit of garage rock for good measure. The title track is more up tempo with jangly guitar parts and drums and bass that hide behind the beat as Saba Lou sings over top. The song is based on a poem that she wrote after a painful ovulation on stage due to/because of her Endometriosis. Lyrically, the song calls for victory over a personal struggle. “Dirty Blonde” is the third track found on Novum Ovum. With lyrics such as “White blonde/Platinum/Honeycomb you stuck me in/Stay goddamn dirty blonde/We all know where you’re coming from/What you’re running from”, the song portrays a character that seems to be running from themselves by the constant change in their hair colour, while at the same time emphasizing the need to not pretend to be someone that you’re not. “Penny Roll” moves in with its garage/soul dynamics, as “On The Fields” delivers more of a jazz beat, mixed with blues and soul.
In some reviews of the album comparisons have been made to Nancy Sinatra and Holly Golightly, but there is so much more found in the music. Other influences such as Nina Simone, Etta James, some 60s garage and many others all add to the world that is created within the music and lyrics of Novum Ovum. Throughout Novum Ovum, the listener is sucked into a world that creates a mood and an atmosphere that is filled with visual and at times visceral images that depict multiple meanings. Novum Ovum means “new egg” in Latin. With Novum Ovum, Saba Lou shows a musical and artistic rebirth revealing something new that captivates with each listen.
Continue reading for a Q&A Revolution Rock did with Saba Lou:
RR: You have a new album coming out called Novum Ovum. What is the significance behind the album’s title and when did you first begin working on the songs for this album?
SL: The meaning of the title is connected to a very personal struggle of mine. Novum Ovum means 'a new egg' in Latin and is based on this furious poem I wrote after a very very painful ovulation on stage. Endometriosis - patches of uterean lining that have gone astray between my uterus' muscle tissue - causes extreme cramping during periods and ovulations. I'm much better now, in treatment and under a strict diet, but for a while there it was extremely difficult to cope. This song is one way I worked through it creatively. I don't remember which song was the first or exactly when, but it must have been somewhere around late 2017. I don't really strive towards 'finishing albums' but just see how and when an idea comes to me, then sometimes I explode and write three in one night. That happened twice for Novum Ovum.
RR: The first single made available online was “Primrose Diner”. Your lyrics are very visual, what inspires you lyrically and where did you draw inspiration for this song?
SL: Primrose Diner is one of my more direct 'odes'. I sort of feel like all of my songs are meant to celebrate something and in this I thought about many friends - one lovely lady, Karen Thompson of GYM Tonic, in specific (I don't think I ever told her...) - who work in cafés, bars and restaurants, something many can relate to. It's not based on a real situation where I've sat at the window trying to muster up the courage to ask a dame out, it's a poetic expression of an admiration I have for those who work in that kind of service. Blended with the romanticized image of the fifties diner waitress. Always on their feet, rushing around, all-smiles in the job description, it's really tough.
Usually it's impressions that inspire me, the feeling left behind after an encounter with someone, a place, anything really. Things that peak my interest that way automatically become something I could write about, lyrics, poems or creative writing alike. With this song especially I felt like I could have gone on forever, written a hundred verses.
Maybe someday I will.
SL: Planet Enigma was a very different phase, the first songs I ever wrote. I'm glad it exists as a witness of time, I will never write or sound like that again. Lyrically I feel much more free on Novum Ovum while I was sort of 'trying things out' with the first. A natural development. And then there's the most obvious difference, the band. I enjoy the versatility of the set, the ability to play solo gives it an acoustic, soft charm, the duo with an added interaction between us two and the band unfolds a whole new level, a grandeur only one, couldn't achieve. I intend on recording a stripped down version of Novum Ovum in the style of the first, solo, as well, to keep it all versatile and not make it seem like the band was the 'improvement'. It's an alternative, enhanced in many ways, but I do still value the other approaches equally.
I guess a similarity would be that both albums document the adolescence of the same person thus completing and complimenting each other, two branches of the same tree.
RR: Who currently plays in your live band and do the same people play on Novum Ovum? Are there any special guests as on Planet Enigma?
SL: The three of them, Oska Wald of Chuckamuck on lead guitar and back up vocals, Amit Alcalai-Duvnjak of the Gondors and Chuckamuck on synth-bass and keys and Omri Gondor of the Gondors on drums, they add so very much to all of it. We are all friends with many connections. Everybody's known each other for several years, I met Oska for the first time when he was fourteen and I was five. We got to know each other about ten years later and are very close friends now. The other two, Amit and Omri, go way back, they started off in the Tel-Aviv jazz scene in their teens. As you can see above, everyone plays with everyone else in many combinations, which gives us all a very comfortable, familiar feeling. When you have good relationships with your bandmates any stage will feel like home.
They are the special addition to Novum Ovum, and what an egg we've all hatched.
RR: What is the typical songwriting process like for you and what would you say some of your musical influences are for your music?
SL: It really depends, sometimes I write a poem and leave it be for a while, rediscover it and add music (I have bags and piles of scrap paper all over my apartment). Sometimes I note chord progressions first, but mostly I do both at the same time. I sing the line, find the chord and progress little by little. I feel very inspired by many types of music, usually I go through phases of a few similar songs and listen to them on repeat for weeks. Then the next song I write is usually connected to that style. I don't want to say that my music is in any way similar, but just to name a few of my favourites, just things that I really enjoy listening to: early Nina Simone, early Eartha Kitt, early Marvin Gaye, Astrud Gilberto (not so much her English singing), Dolly Parton, Asha Bhosle, Ennio Morricone.
And to add some modern stuff: I love The Frowning Clouds from Australia, I want to shout out to them whenever I can. I hope they record some more... I'm a big Flight of the Conchords fan. Also my very dear friend Jeff Clarke and all of his past, present and future projects melt me (Demon's Claws, Hellshovel, Milk Lines, Strawberry Sun). One song on the new album is (secretly) dedicated to him and another inspired by his hair.
RR: Growing up as the daughter of King Khan must have been a unique experience. What is one of your earliest musical memories and what types of music was present when you were growing up?
SL: You could say that, haha, though I've never been anyone else's child and lack the comparison.
My earliest memory is a yellow Buddy Holly Greatest Hits record, that I ADORED as a baby. It still does and always will touch my heart in the place that still drools and wears diapers. The thing I am most grateful for in terms of the artistic exposure my parents gave me (my mother was just as much an important influence, since their shared love of the same things gave birth to what we now call 'The Vortex', our family apARTment) is the love for the history of music and the discovery of new things. We listened to mostly fifties to seventies stuff when we were small, Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina, Bo Diddley, The Miracles, The Ronettes, The Beatles, Screaming Lord Sutch, Nuggets, Pebbles, 60s Bollywood soundtracks, etc. That taught us to understand how these things influenced my father and his friends. The ability to spot commonalities is ultimately what will teach you how to understand musical history and how to approach creation without fear, because it's all connections, references.
My dad played me GG Allin's 'Drink, Fight and Fuck' for the first time when I was eleven. I hated it and I was mad at how amusing he found my torture. Then, when I started to get into it a few years later I was surprised and glad I could reconstruct that development within myself. So in the long run I was taught to understand change and always stay curious.
I don't listen to stuff like that at all now. I've actually been getting into a lot of traditional Japanese koto music, Nanae Yoshimura and Kimio Eto for example, and also a bunch of Indian classical like Ustad Vilayaat Khan. It gives me a wonderful foundation of peace and meditative calm on which to base my thoughts. Who knows what I might write next...
RR: Your first release was a 7 inch EP released when you were only 6 years old. What do you remember of making these recordings that wound up on the First Day of School EP?
SL: I do not remember anything, but wearing very large headphones, that I had to hold onto constantly. Memories from that time are very vague. I know we were always playing with instruments, the best toy in the world if you ask me, Papa was always showing us stuff and let us play with everything. A little off-topic, but I do remember clearly how my little sister Amabelle and I would construct complicated space crafts on the living room floor using the fourtrack, theremin and all other devices around with buttons and nobs to play space travel. (I might note that I'm the deepest trekkie and these instruments may have paved the way there.)
RR: What’s next for you musically?
SL: At the moment I really want to take it easy, I'm focusing more on visual art and creative writing, I just finished a short story I might be printing soon. I love music, but I don't plan on it being the main focus of my life, I'm very attracted to the sciences.
So for now there are now grand plans aside from this alternate version of Novum Ovum.
I will let whatever comes come. Let me finish with a tiny little dream I've been cultivating in the very back corner of my mind: fifties/sixties sci-fi soundtrack meets Ennio Morricone meets Jackson Five.
Get a copy of Saba Lou's Novum Ovum here.
Show 794 (Originally Aired On September 28th, 2019)(Saba Lou, The Replacements, The Mummies):
1. Mudhoney - Creeps Are Everywhere
2. Vivian Girls - Memory
3. Girl Band - Couch Combover
4. Not Of - Truck
5. Cellos - Head to Stone
6. Psychic Void - Drug Surface
7. Psychic Void - Day Dreamer
8. Trout - Laika (CJAM Session)
9. The Replacements - Achin’ To Be (Matt Wallace Mix)
10. The Replacements - Portland (Alternate Mix)(Bearsville Version)
11. Randy Newman - Mama Told Me Not to Come
12. Eamon Mcgrath - Guts
13. Jom Comyn - Mountain
14. Scott Walker - Amsterdam
15. Belle and Sebastian - Get Me Away from Here I'm Dying
16. Julie Dorian - Lovers of the World
17. Patti Smith - Space Monkey
18. Brittany Howard - 13th Century Metal
19. Mount Eerie & Jule Dorian - Who?
20. Saba Lou - Waiting for the Bus
21. Saba Lou - Primrose Diner
22. The New Pornographers - The Surprise Knock
23. Matana Roberts - Fit to be Tied
24. The Mummies - Land of 1000 Dances
25. The Mummies - Victim of Circumstances
26. The Mummies - Justine
27. TV Freaks - Knife
28. Uncontrollable Urge - Pep Talk
29. Chunder Buffet - Goosebumps
30. Fugazi - Nice New Outfit
To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for September 28.
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