Oshima Brothers

Last updated

Oshima Brothers
Oshima Brothers Marathon Center 2022.jpg
At the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts in Findlay, Ohio, January 2022
Background information
Origin Whitefield, Maine, U.S.
Genres Pop, folk
Years active2015 (2015)–present
LabelsOshima Brothers Music
MembersSean Oshima, Jamie Oshima
Website www.oshimabrothers.com

Oshima Brothers is an American folk-pop duo known for each playing multiple instruments and looping their own samples on stage to create a complex soundscape as if they were more than two. They share responsibilities based on natural proclivities, with Sean in charge of external communications and songwriting, and Jamie focusing on mixing and production. Almost every song is paired with a music video, which they produce on their own.

Contents

As siblings raised by American folk musician parents in rural Maine, Sean and Jamie Oshima are self-taught musicians who started singing and playing music together as young children. Performing together as a band since 2015, they attracted a fan base within Maine following the release of their eponymous debut album in 2016. They developed a larger national audience with their 2019 EP Under the Same Stars and subsequent national tours. Though the COVID-19 pandemic kept them from performing live for over a year, they put out a second EP, Sunset Red, in 2020 and returned to touring in 2021. They released their second album Dark Nights Golden Days in April 2022, by which time they had over 115,000 Spotify followers and almost five million streams on the platform of their song "These Cold Nights". This is accompanied by a visual album of the same name released the following October.

Career

Sometimes described as "a self-made boy band", [1] Oshima Brothers officially formed in 2015. [2] They released their first album the following year, when Sean was twenty-two and Jamie was nineteen. [3] By 2018, the duo had developed a following throughout Maine [3] and they started working with booking and marketing agents around this time as well. [4]

The brothers started touring nationally after the release of their 2019 EP, Under the Same Stars. [5] That year, their song "Ellie" was featured on the NPR Music Heavy Rotation ten-song playlist [4] and "These Cold Nights" reached one million streams on Spotify. They are the third musical group from Maine to reach that goal. [6] Before Under the Same Stars, the duo had fewer than 1,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. [7] By April 2020, they had over 100,000. [7]

Premier of Dark Nights Golden Days visual album, October 2022 Oshima Brothers Film Premier at One Longfellow Square October 21, 2022.jpg
Premier of Dark Nights Golden Days visual album, October 2022

Oshima Brothers had planned their biggest tour for 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused all concert dates to be canceled. [3] Organizers across the country canceled over thirty of their concerts in 2020 [8] and the duo played no live performances from March 2020 until summer 2021. [2] According to Sean: "We lost a gigantic tour and really all income — but we couldn't let it stop us". [9] The brothers focused on recording new songs, producing music videos, [2] and releasing their second EP, Sunset Red, in late summer 2020. [8] They also performed livestream concerts for audiences in multiple states. [8]

The duo returned to touring in 2021 with their first concert outside Maine since the start of the pandemic in May of that year, [10] followed by performances across the Northeast. [11] On March 18, 2022, "Lost at Sea" from Under the Same Stars was featured on episode 765 of This American Life . [12] On April 1, [13] Oshima Brothers released their second album Dark Nights Golden Days, which combined their digital EPs Dark and Golden, plus seven new tracks. [1] They promoted the release on a tour through the Midwest, Florida, and East Coast, which included live performances for Acoustic Café and Mountain Stage . Both were syndicated on 140 and 200 radio stations, respectively. [12] By April 25, the duo had over 115,000 Spotify followers and their song "Cadence" from Dark Nights Golden Days had been streamed more than 330,000 times. "These Cold Nights" had been streamed almost five million times. [14] In October 2022, the duo released a forty-eight-minute visual album to accompany Dark Nights Golden Days and promoted it with a series of film showings. [15] The film focuses on the members' lives as musicians and brothers and features Maine's natural landscape and digital 3D environments. [16] In January 2023, they performed at the Ann Arbor Folk Fest in Michigan alongside Ani DiFranco, Patty Griffin, Gina Chavez, and St. Paul and The Broken Bones. [17] The following month they were recruited to perform alongside Jeff Tweedy, Andrew Bird, Trampled by Turtles, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Patty Griffin, Neko Case, and Shovels & Rope on the 15th Cayamo cruise. [18] Later that year they released Origami, a digital album of remixed versions of previously released songs. [19] In June 2024, they were booked to headline the Resurgam Festival in Portland, Maine. [20]

Origins

Born three years apart, [21] Sean and Jamie Oshima are brothers of Japanese-Italian ancestry [19] who grew up in the rural community of Whitefield, Maine. [12] Their American folk musician parents made thirty different instruments available to them in the home as children [22] and brought them to gigs at weddings, farmers markets, and contra dances. [23] They started singing together in the bathtub when Jamie was three years old and Sean was six. [24] Jamie started playing drums at four, [8] learning by playing along to Beatles songs. [10] He started learning guitar at five. [2] The brothers learned to sing harmonies with their mother while driving to school as young children and also sang Beatles songs with both parents at the dinner table. [25] Jamie's first concert as a solo performer was for a crowd of about two hundred at a church in Midcoast Maine, at which he played a fingerstyle guitar piece by Tommy Emmanuel. [26] Sean began writing songs at thirteen. [2] The pair attended Camden High School, [27] but Jamie homeschooled the final two years of high school to accommodate his career as a touring musician. [28]

Musical style

Oshima Brothers' genre has been described as "folk-pop", [6] "folk-adjacent", [29] "contemporary folk and acoustic pop", [30] "neo-folk", [31] "indie pop", [7] "roots-based pop", [4] and "Americana". [8] The musicians themselves consider their genre to be fluid and open to interpretation by the listener. [8] The brothers claim that Maine's rural landscape is a major influence on their work. [32] Musical influences include albums by the Beatles and Gillian Welch they heard at home growing up, plus music by Ed Sheeran, Lake Street Dive, and Thirdstory they discovered later on. [33] Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, they started incorporating dance-pop sounds into their work. [3] Some tracks on their 2022 album are described this way. [34] According to Atwood Magazine's Mitch Mosk: "Best known as weavers of charismatic folk pop, Oshima Brothers seem to have broken out of any and all genre constraints on [Dark Nights Golden Days]; their songs incorporate a wealth of influences, including folk, pop, alternative, R&B, funk, rock, and so on." [29] Grateful Dead manager Richard Loren described the brothers as "unbelievably accomplished songwriters, singers and instrumentalists". [35]

Musicianship

At Maine Craft Distilling in Portland, Maine, May 2022 Oshima Brothers at Maine Craft Distilling May 29, 2022.jpg
At Maine Craft Distilling in Portland, Maine, May 2022

Both Sean and Jamie are self-taught musicians and have received no formal training. [36] On stage, Sean primarily sings lead vocals and plays acoustic guitar, but also plays piano. [37] Jamie sings harmonies and plays electric guitar, Rhodes piano, Wurlitzer piano, bass guitar, fiddle, synthesizer, organ, mandolin, banjo, kalimba, foot percussion board, kick drum, snare drum, penny whistle, and flute. [38] Jamie often operates multiple instruments at once, playing one with his hands and a percussion instrument with his feet, [39] then sampling and looping himself and Sean to create a complex soundscape as if there were more than two members. [14] According to Sean: "It culminates in what we hope is the sound of at least three people". [2]

The brothers share band responsibilities based on their own natural proclivities. The more gregarious of the two, Sean handles external communications and is the primary songwriter. [40] More comfortable at home, Jamie specializes in recording, mixing, and set building. [2] Songwriting responsibilities are shared. [41] Their songs often start with an initial concept from Sean that gets more fully developed with input from Jamie. [42]

Jamie also leads on producing the duo's music videos. [2] According to Sean: "All the videos come from Jamie's own brain and vision". [8] Almost every song is paired with a music video, [24] which they choreograph, direct, record, and edit on their own. [1] As of October 2022, these videos have attracted over a quarter million views on YouTube. [43] Like his musicianship, Jamie's video production skills are self-taught. [8] He published his first music video to YouTube when he was eleven. [44]

Personal life

Having grown up in Whitefield, Maine, [12] the brothers later relocated to the coastal community of Belfast. [3] By 2021 they had moved to the state's largest city of Portland, [45] which Rolling Stone magazine had recently described as being home to one of the country's eight best music scenes. [3] Sean loves cooking for others and woodworking in his free time. [46]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitefield, Maine</span> Town in the State of Maine, United States

Whitefield is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,408 at the 2020 census. Whitefield is named for the celebrated British evangelist George Whitefield, who inspired the colonists before the town was settled in 1770, mainly by Irish Catholics. They remembered him when incorporation came in 1809. In the early twenty-first century it was the boyhood home of Sean and Jamie Oshima, who formed their folk-pop duo Oshima Brothers there. Whitefield is included in the Augusta, Maine micropolitan New England City and Town Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Proclaimers</span> Scottish musical group

The Proclaimers are a Scottish rock duo formed in 1983 by twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid. They came to attention with their 1987 single "Letter from America", which reached No. 3 in the United Kingdom, and the 1988 single "I'm Gonna Be ", which topped charts in Australia, Iceland and New Zealand. The duo's biggest album, Sunshine on Leith (1988) has been certified multi-Platinum in Australia and Canada, selling over 2 million copies worldwide, including around 700,000 in the United States. The Proclaimers have sold over 5 million albums worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Levert</span> American R&B singer (1966–2006)

Gerald Edward Levert was an American singer-songwriter and producer. Levert performed with his brother, Sean Levert, and friend Marc Gordon with the R&B vocal group, LeVert. Levert was also a member of LSG, a supergroup comprising Keith Sweat, Johnny Gill, and himself. Levert was the son of Eddie Levert, lead singer of the R&B/soul vocal group the O'Jays. He released 9 solo albums, 6 as a member of LeVert, 2 with his father, and 2 as a member of LSG. Levert was also credited with the discovery of R&B groups the Rude Boys, Men at Large, and 1 of the Girls. Levert was also part of the R&B group Black Men United.

The state of Maine is located in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Its musical traditions extend back thousands of years to the music of the first peoples of Maine, the Penobscot Passamaquoddy, Wabanaki and other related Indigenous cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Chambers Brothers</span> American psychedelic soul band

The Chambers Brothers is an American psychedelic soul band, best known for their eleven-minute 1967 psychedelic soul hit "Time Has Come Today". The group was part of the wave of new music that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements. Their music has been kept alive through frequent use in film soundtracks. There were four brothers, though other musicians were also in the group.

Thomas Anderson Brosseau is an American musical storyteller and guitarist, born and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States. He was awarded Key to the City of Grand Forks by mayor Michael R. Brown in 2007, in part due to his original album of music, Grand Forks, which was dedicated to the people along the Red River of the North who lived through the 1997 Red River flood. NPR said Brosseau “possesses one of the most arresting voices in folk music today.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Aid Kit (band)</span> Swedish folk duo

First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo consisting of the sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, born in 1990 and 1993 respectively. When performing live, they are accompanied by a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboard player. First Aid Kit started to become internationally known in 2008 with their YouTube uploaded cover of the Fleet Foxes' song "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song". In 2012 Rolling Stone magazine had their song "Emmylou" as 10th on their "Single of the Year" list. First Aid Kit has released five albums, four EPs and several singles. In 2015, they were nominated for a Brit Award as one of the five best international groups. They were nominated again in 2019 and 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie (singer)</span> South Korean singer (born 1997)

Park Ji-min, professionally known as Jamie or Jamie Park, and formerly Jimin Park, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, and television host. She is best known as the winner of the first season of K-pop Star and as a former member of the vocal duo 15& and the project group M.O.L.A. She was formerly a co-host of the variety show After School Club from 2014 to 2022.

Sarah Blacker is an American singer-songwriter from Boston, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayo Street Arts</span> Community center in the United States

Mayo Street Arts is a community arts and performance venue in the East Bayside neighborhood of Portland, Maine. It was founded in 2010 by Blainor McGough after leasing the building which was formerly St. Ansgar Church. Mayo Street Arts' second executive director, Ian Bannon, succeeded McGough in May 2020 following McGough's resignation. Located next to Kennedy Park, a public housing development and close to many other public housing areas, Mayo Street Arts serves as a theater, concert venue, art gallery, and meeting space and offers affordable artist studios, rehearsal space, and a teaching platform for visual and performing artists of multicultural backgrounds. Programming is varied, but with a particular focus on puppetry, folk music, and dance.

The Doubleclicks Nerd-folk musical duo

The Doubleclicks are a nerd-folk musical duo based in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, California, consisting of siblings Laser Webber and Aubrey Turner. They first became known for performing nerd-friendly comedy music, including songs about Dungeons & Dragons, dinosaurs, and other geeky themes. While their later songs retain those elements, there has been a stronger focus on feminist and other social issues, and more personal themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brown Bird</span> American folk music group (2003–2014)

Brown Bird was an American folk music group, originally formed in 2003 in Seattle, Washington as a solo project by David Lamb. Adding and changing its membership over time, the band's final incarnation was the duo of Lamb and his wife MorganEve Swain. The band ceased in 2014 following Lamb's death from leukemia.

Jamie Hartman is an English songwriter and producer based in Los Angeles, CA, and the former lead singer of the indie-pop band Ben's Brother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie Miller (singer)</span> Welsh singer

Jamie Miller is a Welsh singer and musician currently based in Los Angeles. He was featured on The Voice UK in 2017, where he came in third place. In 2020, he signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and has released an EP called Broken Memories in April 2022. He is currently signed under BMG and working on his debut album.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben&Ben</span> Filipino indie-folk/pop band

Ben&Ben are a Filipino indie folk-pop band from Manila. They were formed in 2016 by twin brothers Paolo and Miguel Benjamin Guico, calling themselves the Benjamins. A year later, they expanded into an ensemble and settled on the current name, adding Poch Barretto, Keifer Cabugao (violin), Patricia Lasaten (keyboards), Toni Muñoz (percussion), Andrew de Pano (percussion), Agnes Reoma, and Jam Villanueva (drums). The band's musical style has garnered praise for its anthemic quality and emotional engagement that appeals to a broad audience, while their lyrics focus on subjects including loss, heartbreak and relationship, and the journey towards self-love.

Caamp is an American folk band from Upper Arlington, Ohio.

Weakened Friends is an American indie rock band formed in Portland, Maine best known for their 2018 song "Blue Again", from their debut full-length album Common Blah. The band consists of married couple Sonia Sturino and Annie Hoffman, and Adam Hand (drums).

Mia Isobel Wray-McCann, known professionally as Mia Wray, is an Australian pop singer, songwriter and musician from Noosa, Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Blood</span> American psychedelic folk band

Big Blood is an American band formed in South Portland, Maine, in 2006. The band's music fuses psychedelic folk, experimental rock, and an eclectic array of other styles and influences. Big Blood originated as a husband-and-wife duo of Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin, who had previously been bandmates together in Cerberus Shoal. They formed Big Blood shortly after the birth of their daughter, Quinnisa Rose Kinsella Mulkerin, who began featuring in the band's recordings in 2010 and later became a full-fledged member.

<i>Ill Meet You Here</i> 2021 studio album by Dar Williams

I'll Meet You Here is a 2021 studio album by American folk musician Dar Williams. This is Williams' first studio album in six years, after a time spent writing books and giving songwriting retreats. Songwriting for the album began while touring and being inspired by reading about smalltown America; it explores themes of accepting life as it is, detaching from judgement, and being optimistic and is based on Williams' songwriting and personal history.

References

Citations

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.