Bury St Edmunds artist Loome prepares for debut album release following health scare

A Suffolk musician is preparing to release his debut album after a health scare inspired him to pursue his dreams.

Loome is the alt-pop endeavour of 34-year-old multi-instrumentalist Tomas Frankson, of Bury St Edmunds, who has been writing songs, producing tracks and performing shows under the pseudonym since 2018.

After building a fanbase of more than 14,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and being named BBC Introducing Suffolk’s ‘Sound of 2023’, which landed him a slot at Latitude Festival, Tom is now releasing his first album, Astrohearts, on Friday, September 20.

He took on the challenge of writing, recording, mixing and mastering the album all by himself, from his bedroom, following a shock diagnosis in January which motivated him to finally release an album after years of wanting to do it.

Tom said: “I was having a routine blood test and I got some pretty horrendous results back.

“It turned out I had dangerously high cholesterol levels - it’s called hypercholesterolemia - which gave me a really bad life expectancy in regards to heart health.

“It’s not fatal or anything, but the doctors said if I hadn’t of caught it early - I might not have been looking at anything past my 40s.

“Going through the cycles of different tests and medications was crazy, and I’m all okay so it’s not so much of a downer any more - but it did rattle me, for sure.

“I felt like I’d come face to face with my own mortality in quite a brutal way and it made me think: what am I actually doing? Is what I’m doing important?”

Now receiving medication for the condition and able to live his life to the full, Tom said the diagnosis was one of the main reasons he wanted to put out a larger body of music, opposed to the singles and EP’s he had released until this point.

“The album announcement in January was almost like a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “I had no real plan for it - but I just felt like I needed to do something I feel passionate about and follow it through.

“Even while the whole medical side of things was still unfolding, I just knew I had to do this album.

“I think we are all guilty of putting things off sometimes - so when you hear that you’ve got potentially less than 10 years left, you make some really big life changes.”

Tom first got involved with music at the age of 10, coming from a family of musicians.

He attended ACM London, Academy of Contemporary Music, where he honed his song-writing and production skills with one of his mentors being a former guitarist for Alice Cooper.

Other than Loome, he also fills his working life with music as the owner of TF Music School in Bury - teaching around 160 students per week how to play instruments, sing, write songs and produce tracks.

Tom said: “The music school side of things has been amazing and it’s great to share my passion with the younger generation.

“But obviously Loome is where I really want to be - and it’s been incredible to see how much it’s been growing over the last few years.

“Now the album is finally done, I’m so excited to play the songs live - I think these are the best songs I’ve written to date.”

Loome’s sound is a blend of alternative rock, guitar-driven pop and electronic music, similar to Coldplay, The 1975 and Imagine Dragons, and so far three singles have been released from the upcoming album including Easy Nights, Day I Died and Mars.

You can pre-save his upcoming album by clicking here.

With the release of Astrohearts, Tom will be headlining an album launch gig at The Hunter Club on Friday, October 4 where he is looking for other upcoming acts from the area to perform the support slots.

If you are interested in performing at the launch, send an email to info@loome.space or you can send Tom a message through Instagram or TikTok.

He added: “I want to support other bands and artists as much as my past tutors have supported me, so I think it only makes sense to offer the support slots out to others and hopefully give them a bit of a leg up, I suppose.

“I’ve wanted to put out this album for so long and now it’s finally happening - I honestly can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”