Tamar Berk has always had a gift for turning inner chaos into music that feels both intimate and universal, and with her newest single “Stay Close By,” she’s stepping into the most vulnerable and ambitious chapter of her career yet. The song is the first glimpse into her fifth solo album, ocd, which arrived on September 5th and stands as her boldest work to date. Fuzzed-out guitars, dreamy textures, and reverb-soaked melodies serve as the foundation for lyrics that wrestle with anxiety, identity, and the relentless loops of thought that refuse to let go. It’s music that lingers like a question you can’t quite answer, but also don’t want to forget.
“Stay Close By” carries the weight of yearning, a soft but insistent plea for closeness and reassurance when certainty feels far away. Tamar describes it as a song about “hopeful optimism that hasn’t quite panned out yet,” and you can hear that tension in every note. The track feels like a deep inhale and exhale, a pause in the chaos that still leaves the edges buzzing. With its layered arrangements and raw lyrical honesty, it sets the tone for the full album—an exploration of what it means to live inside your own spiraling mind while still reaching outward for connection.
Tamar’s journey has always been one of reinvention. From her Cleveland roots to her pivotal years in Chicago’s alternative scene of the late ’80s and ’90s, she has consistently pushed herself into new sounds and identities. As a founding member of bands like Starball and Sweet Heat, a collaborator in electro-punk duo The Countdown, and later a fixture in Portland’s garage and prog circles with The Pynnacles and Paradise, her musical voice has been as restless as it has been resilient. Now, based in San Diego, she’s carved out a celebrated solo career defined by fearless self-production, thoughtful songwriting, and an unwavering DIY spirit. Every one of her past four albums earned a nomination for Best Pop Album at the San Diego Music Awards, proof of her steady evolution and the deep resonance of her songs.
With ocd, Tamar takes everything a step further. Recorded in her home studio and co-produced with Matt Walker—whose resume includes The Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and Morrissey—the album is an intricate yet unflinchingly personal body of work. Tamar plays nearly everything herself, from guitar and bass to piano, organ, synth, harmonica, and percussion, but she also brings in a roster of trusted collaborators, including members of Eels, Maita, Suzanne Vega’s band, and Earthless. The result is a record that feels expansive yet intimate, lush yet unguarded, a carefully constructed reflection of the very thought patterns it’s about.
“There’s a linear order and a bigger picture to the way my brain works,” Tamar says. “It’s the same way I build songs. Every track is like a single word in a much larger sentence.” That sentence is ocd, an album that threads together grief, motherhood, resilience, and self-discovery with striking clarity. Each song feels like a piece of a larger puzzle, capturing the chaos of overthinking but also the beauty that emerges from it.
To celebrate the release, Tamar is returning to Chicago, the city where she first honed her voice, for a special performance at Schubas Tavern on September 27th, opening for Material Issue. It’s a fitting homecoming for an artist who has never stopped evolving yet has always remained true to the emotional core of her music.
With “Stay Close By” and ocd, Tamar Berk has created more than just songs—she’s mapped out the raw terrain of what it means to feel too much, think too much, and still find a way to turn that into something transcendent. Her music reminds us that there’s meaning in the mess, and sometimes the act of staying close—whether to someone else, or simply to ourselves—is enough to make sense of it all.
Socials
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamarberkmusic/
Twitter: https://x.com/TamarBerk