M&O Hone Their M.O. On New Album

By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on May 11, 2014 3:30PM

Local soul pop act M&O may have lost its former band name prior to putting out their sophomore album, but their identity is as defined as ever on the duo's new eight-song LP.

Formerly known as Milo & Otis, the band's members Jamila Woods and Owen Hill recently shortened their name to avoid copyright conflicts with a DJ duo with the same name. Not slighted by the mishap, M&O breathe fresh air into R&B and soul with Almost Us.

Woods and Hill met while attending Brown University but didn't start making music together until after they both graduated—which is Woods' fault, as Hill playfully joked during the pair's conversation with Chicagoist. Hill, an East Coast native, found himself frustrated with the music production industry in Atlanta and decided to join Hill in her hometown of Chicago.

With Woods' background in poetry and Hill's technical skills, M&O's music is both artistically experimental and consciously controlled.

"I don't know if I've always wanted to make R&B and soul but for the longest time I thought I wasn't good enough or something," Hill confessed to Chicagoist. "I thought I need better musicality. I think what inspires me about those genres is the range of emotions that they get you to feel...I was interested in something that communicated more on a range, even within songs."

M&O prove continue to prove the have that talent and emotional range on Almost Us, a softer, poppier approach to their niche sound. Woods attributes the slight change in tone to the duo's improved collaboration techniques.

"We definitely were collaborating more on this one," she told us. "On The Joy[M&O's first release] you hear more of Owen producing instrumentals and me singing on top of it. On a lot of the songs on Almost Us, we were actually in the studio together for most of the process."

The album might seem a bit short for an LP, but Hill says it's not because the band was short on inspiration.

"We started off with closer to twelve songs and one or two didn't pan out exactly how we wanted them to and then two of the other tracks sounded great but just didn't fit the feel that we were creating with the eight that did make it," Hill said.

"In general, I'm kind of a fan of shorter albums—like Dark Side of the Moon or Purple Rain...So we felt that it was totally cool to not put something [on the album] that was good but kind of distraction rather than have an experience you want to go over and over again," Hill said.

That train of thought paid off. The songs on The Joy, while impressive, feel more like stand-alone works of art. Almost Us is a much more blended effort.

You can hear M&O live at Midsommarfest in Andersonville this summer (June 6-8). The duo also appeared on WGN’s Mid-Day News Music Lounge earlier this week: