Alongside the more adventurous strands of indie pop and electronic rock, lomipo has always
retained a modicum of experimentation even when Shay Pinto’s songwriting aims squarely at accessibility. At Mercury Lounge in New York, that tension between structure and freedom
became especially clear.
The 45-minute showcase presented eight originals with Pinto on lead vocals and electric guitar, Ben Atias on lead guitar, Orian Rose on drums and Amit Minz on bass. Pinto remained the central force: songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and producer, shaping both the material and the direction of the performance.
One opening made the point immediately. Drums appeared alone, establishing a spare pulse; then, almost without warning, bass and keys entered together, turning the skeletal rhythm into an unexpectedly rich introduction. Pinto’s vocal followed — full-bodied but controlled, widened by harmony effects — carrying the verse before the arrangement opened into a chorus that raised the energy without simply resorting to volume.
This is where Pinto’s compositional sense becomes most interesting. The songs may carry pop hooks, but their internal architecture is less literal-minded: acoustic passages give way to full- band sections, instrumental layers arrive incrementally, and rhythmic movement often does as much structural work as the harmony. There is real arrangement discipline here, with Pinto using contrast and accumulation rather than predictable escalation.
The audience included musicians, independent music professionals and fans, and the set ended with sustained applause and continued engagement after the final song. In a room built around short showcases and constant turnover, that matters: the evening felt less like a routine slot than a compact statement of what lomipo can do when the material is given room to expand. Pinto’s reach is hardly confined to his own band. He has written or produced for artists including Mergui, Shay Gabso, Nadav Guedj, Dudi Bar David, Haim Israel and Mika Moshe, while his work has appeared across Israeli national television and radio. He has also worked with Helicon, NMC Music and Artlist, moving comfortably between independent production and the mainstream industry.
That breadth has increasingly separated Pinto from many of his peers. Few Israeli pop writers operate as convincingly across songwriting, production, performance and instrumental work while maintaining such a recognisable musical identity.
Mercury Lounge did not reveal a musician searching for a direction. It showed one refining a
language already his own: melodic, rhythmically elastic and willing to leave just enough
unresolved for the listener to follow. There was something telling about hearing lomipo in this room, too. Mercury Lounge has always made its name by putting new sounds into close quarters, and this felt like one of those nights when the booking itself said something about where the room’s ears were pointing. Pinto’s songs sit in an interesting middle ground — immediate enough to work as pop, but full of odd
harmonic corners, elastic grooves and arrangements that refuse to behave exactly as expected.
On this night, lomipo didn’t just fit the Mercury Lounge programme; the band helped give it an identity, making the room feel connected to a particular strain of adventurous, songwriter-led independent music. In a venue with music moving through it night after night, these are the shows that can end up defining a season.
