Today, Nate Kinsella (Joan of Arc, American Football, LIES, Make Believe) shares Birth of Omni - his first album as Birthmark in 8 years. These tracks find Nate confronting the realities of aging, the exigencies of long romantic relationships morphing into domestic partnerships, lust and masculinity through the veil of parenthood and the way it reflects back on one’s own prerogatives and prejudices. 

Get your copy of Birth of Omni on Mahogany In Cloudy Clear vinyl today.

Along with the record, he shares the cheeky music video for “Boyfriend,” in which he and his wife celebrate their love with an endearing and joyful dance in nothing more than two pairs of roller skates - watch below.

“I wrote this song for my wife, Jamie, to enjoy. She has a deep, unironic love of 90’s R&B. But unlike any R&B song from that era, this one sexualizes and celebrates male domesticity. Weird flex.” - Nate Kinsella 

Nate wrote, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered this album alone, because these are notes to self, personal reminders of how he wants to exist moving forward. Roles and the relational bonds between us change, he realizes, and it’s up to us to make good on that. There’s hope in knowing there’s still somewhere else to go.

His voice distended into a codeine drip, warped with software until he questioned if it was still his, opener “Snowflake in My Palm (Not for Long)” finds Nate questioning if giving his time and attention to his kids means the end of his own life, or is the thing that actually makes him matter. During “Butterfly,” as beautiful as an early Sufjan Stevens symphony, he cavorts with his giggling daughters in the backyard, only to realize that their innocent game of chase presages the way they may one day need to flee some toxic dude. 

“I’m Awake” steadily rises from a piano meditation on memory and ontology into an ode to maintaining a sense of innocence even as experience comes. Nate and his kids work through the spelling of “rainbow” until they get it right; the song shudders brilliantly, the future opening like a break in ominous clouds. There’s that change, cast in love. One track later, however, gunshots cutting through the sound of screaming children interrupt closer “Pretty Flowers.” It’s an honest reflection of the doomsday reel that runs through this new father’s mind when it wanders, a jarring reminder of life’s real stakes. The track returns in a tribute to his children, to “the good that I feel” - it’s the entire record's arc, cast in miniature.

As Birth of Omni took shape, Nate reckoned with his own sexuality, coming to grips with the acceptance that he’d never really fit into the social straitjacket of masculinity he’d tried to don neatly for 40 years. Now with a family and approaching middle age, could he admit that he was more than someone’s straight husband? Could he deal with it? The gorgeous and compulsive “Rodney” is a lustful song for the would-be paramour that gives the track its name, countered by Nat'es awareness that maybe the escapades of his youth are behind him, that he’s got other commitments in his life. Shudder to Think’s Craig Wedren backs Nate here, playing the real role of the supportive voice who has been here before. We make choices for those we love, Nate affirms during “Rodney,” but the adventures of our imaginations can and should remain endless.

He ponders how to recapture a bit of that youthful lust in “Red Meadow,” offering up what he can—new clothes, a haircut, a romp in a field—to disrupt their routine “in a little box on a hill.” But during “Boyfriend,” he coos about washing dishes and taking babies on neighborhood walks above rattling bass and ricocheting synths, apron still on - a fully “adult” seduction. 

Nate confesses that no one may care about what he calls his “dad record,” his reckonings with approaching middle age, or the manifold musical fascinations of his chameleonic songs. Perhaps that’s bad for business, he admits. But isn’t that kind of vulnerability and self-reckoning the point of Birth of Omni, to make yourself and hopefully your kids and maybe even the world a little better by being honest about and open with yourself?