Tamar Berk – ocd
Tamar Berk, the acclaimed singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, returns with her fifth solo album, ocd, arriving across music platforms on September 5th. This new release captures Berk at her most emotionally raw and musically ambitious, exploring the intricacies of identity, anxiety, and self-inventory with fearless honesty.
ocd includes the single “stay close by” and today’s title track “ocd.”
ollowing wide indie acclaim for the first single “stay close by,” Tamar turns the spotlight to the album’s title track and focus single, “ocd”, whose music video arrives alongside the full release. A groovy and dizzying layering of Wurlitzer, trumpet, and lyrical repetition, the song is both beautiful and claustrophobic. Teasing synths drift like sirens over an ocd-like refrain: “over and over and over.”
“It’s about the chaos I live with internally, the constant loop of anxiety, memory, control, regrets, and perfectionism,” Tamar says. “But it’s also about trying to find the humor and beauty in it, too.”
From her roots in Cleveland to her rise in Chicago’s vibrant alternative scene of the 1980s and 1990s, Tamar’s musical journey has been shaped by bold reinvention. She emerged as a founding member of bands like Starball and Sweet Heat, releasing music on indie labels such as Thick Records, Minty Fresh, and Kill Rock Stars. Later, she formed the electro-punk duo The Countdown with her husband, and after relocating to Portland, performed in garage and prog-influenced projects including The Pynnacles and Paradise. Now based in San Diego, Tamar has spent the past five years carving out a celebrated solo career. Each of her previous four albums received a nomination for Best Pop Album at the San Diego Music Awards, and her music has continued to evolve with depth and clarity.
ocd is the culmination of this evolution. It is not just an album but a full-body map of overthinking, emotional spirals, and obsessive introspection. With fuzzed-out guitars, dreamy synths, rich piano lines, and confessional lyrics, Berk has created her most vulnerable and self-aware work to date. The album builds on themes explored in earlier releases; grief, hope, identity, motherhood, and resilience, but ocd dives further inward, unearthing the chaos and beauty of the mind at its most unfiltered.
“There’s a linear order and a bigger picture to the way my brain works,” says Berk. “It’s the same way I build songs. Every track is like a single word in a much larger sentence.”
The opening track and first single “stay close by” sets the tone with its dreamy atmosphere and emotional inertia. It feels like a long, deep exhale, a gentle plea for connection amid uncertainty. “This song is about a hopeful optimism that hasn’t quite panned out yet,” Tamar explains.
ocd was recorded in Tamar’s home studio and co-produced with drummer Matt Walker (Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, Filter, Morrissey). Berk played a wide array of instruments including guitar, bass, piano, Wurlitzer, Prophet and Farfisa organs, synth, harmonica, and percussion. The album features performances by longtime collaborators Matt Thomson (Maita), Allen Hunter (Eels), Chris Marsteller, Jonathan Gordon (Suzanne Vega), and Steve Denekas, with additional contributions from Isaiah Mitchell (Earthless), Charlee Berlin, Justin Thorpe, trumpet player Everett Kelly, and cellist Erdis Maxhelaku.
With ocd, Tamar Berk offers her most deeply personal and sonically ambitious record yet. It is an album about unraveling, understanding, and reclaiming. In every track, she makes sense of the mess and turns it into something unforgettable.
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