Recorded in Nigeria in 1973, the members of Ofege were only in high school when they made this album, but damn! In any battle of the bands competition our money would for sure be on these guys! Infused with a really keen sense of melody as well as nice fuzzy guitar sounds, great drumming and catchy vocals, this is truly a lost Afro-rock gem! We first heard Ofege on the African volume of the Love Peace & Poetry series and then on the great Sound Way compilation Nigeria Rock Special, and if you are like us and can't get enough of those special sounds that were pouring out of Nigeria in the '70s, Ofege will surely hit the spot! We're reminded a bit of that great Chrissy Zebby Tembo reissue we freaked out about last year. Heavily influenced by Western rock of the time, lots of great wah wah jams and that fuzzy guitar sound we never get tired of. Pretty amazing that these guys ranged in age from 15-17 when they made this as it sounds so confident and accomplished.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've long been a song-poem boosters around these parts. How could we not be? So innocent and inspired and brilliant. From John Trubee's legendary "Blind Man's Penis" single to those I'm Just The Other Women collections from way back and the more recent The American Song-Poem Anthology: Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood And Brush compilation on Bar/None. For those of you who are new to song-poems, there was (and still is to a lesser extent) a whole industry of musicians (and shysters of course) that would set your poem to music for a couple hundred bucks. Probably the most well known was Rodd Keith, who has had several compilations released over the years. But the song-poem industry was definitely a subject ripe for a documentary. So finally someone went and did it. And it just so happens that it was AQ pal Jaimie Metzger! We're happy to report that the film is really really good, and so goddamn funny. And of course a little sad. Some of the highlights: Interview with Caglar Juan Singletary, a cute nerdy bespectacled young man who writes about ladies, religion, science fiction and martial arts, and is responsible for the absolutely brilliant "Non Violent Taekwando Troopers". The whole segment on Gary Forney and his son Josh and their Iowa Mountain Tour, where they play their classics "Chicken Insurrection", "Three Eyed Boy" and more, for a perplexed crowd at an RV park. This part was so brutal I literally had to walk out of the room! The interview with the man who sang and performed "Blind Man's Penis", a cute old country veteran talking about how embarassed he was, and how that song was maybe his most embarassing moment. A totally intense segment with Gene Merlino (responsible for the brilliant "Jimmy Carter Says Yes!") pulling a major power trip with his band. A serious argument ensues. So rough. Anyone who has ever played in a band will shudder with recognition. Then there's an amazing segment showing the whole process from the poem's arrival through the finished song/product. It only takes about one hour actually! All the segments with Tom Ardolino of NRBQ, the original champion of song poems, who is so damn cute and genuine and plays us all his favorite song poems. And a really poignant bit with Rodd Keith's son. An amazingly made, brilliantly researched, hilarious, sad, and totally fascinating documantary. Kudos to Jamie. And obviously all the writers and musicians. Lots of DVD bonus footage, deleted scenes, studio sessions, the Iowa Mountain Tour Live (oh man....) much of it filmed by AQ pal/regular Cayce Lindner!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Everyone's always saying they just don't make punk rock like they used to, and for the most part that's pretty much true. But, these guys do. Really. Just like the old days. In fact, if you didn't know better, you might find yourself wondering what old SST 7" this is playing, or thinking it must be produced by Spot, assuming they're probably from Hermosa Beach, pretty sure we saw them open for Black Flag, the record probably has cover art by Raymond Pettibon� well ONE of those is true (the cover art), even though this record sounds like they ALL must be.
Off! is most definitely a punk rock super group, Keith Morris (Circle Jerks, Black Flag) on vocals, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass, Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless, Clickitat Ikitawi, etc) on drums, and Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) on guitar. Sort of an unlikely lineup, but you'll only think that until you hear these guys play. Blasting, hooky, three chord old school hardcore / punk rock, 16 songs in 18 minutes, originally released as four 7" singles, these songs are short and sharp and are dead ringers for all the bands we loved back in the day. Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Redd Kross, Fear, the Germs, listening to these totally brings all that right back, Morris' distinctive yowl (sounding more and more like Jello Biafra), those killer riffs, the pounding propulsive drumming, the lo-fi production, and the songs, simple but catchy as hell. The jams KILL.
Awesome Pettibon cover art just seals the deal. It's been THIRTY years since the Decline Of Western Civilization came out and introduced punk rock to a whole new audience, and Western civilization is still in decline, and this shit still sounds better than most of the music released over the last three decades...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
What else needs to be said about these guys that we didn't say first time around? A kick ass punk rock super group, featuring members of some of our favorite bands, doing pitch perfect eighties punk rock / hardcore, that sounds EXACTLY like from back in the day. Dimitri Coats from Burning Brides, Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks and Black Flag, Steven McDonald from current AQ Record Of The Weekers Redd Kross, and Mario Rubalcaba from Earthless, Clikatat Ikatowi, etc. all kicking out the jams, short and sharp, swaggery and snotty, brief blast of serious punk energy, catchy as hell, check out "Wiped Out" which is a dead ringer for Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown", and really you might find yourselves constantly casting back to classic punk jams and/or experiencing a permanent case of sonic deja vu, which in this case is not a bad thing at all.
A long overdue review of this insane and brutal chunk of Swedish UNblack metal. We've had this in stock for ages and� wait! What? Swedish? Yeah, you heard correctly, you thick the Christian unblack metal movement was only happening right here in the US of A. Nope there are Christian black metal bands all over the world. It just so happens that the hub of all things UNblack is stateside, E.E.E., who have been unleashing a never ending torrent of gloriously fucked up and totally demented UNblackness with no end in sight.
So Offerblod share not only an ideology with their US brethren, but also a truly fucked up sound. Hard to describe. It's definitely lo-fi, outrageously so, but it's also blown out, super distorted, in the red, some tracks are so muddy and murky, the riffs sound like a underwater rumble, the drums barely able to penetrate the muted buzz, other tracks are super brittle and high end, the cymbal wash a cloud of high end hiss, swallowing up all the sounds around it. The combination of Offerblod's raw primitive black buzz, and the insanely erratic, but totally crucial-to-their-fucked-sound production, makes this one of the coolest, weirdest and definitely one of our favorite black metal records of the year.
Fans of Bone Awl, Akitsa, Ash Pool, Ancestors and other practitioners of ultra buzzy raw blackness will definitely dig! Packaged in a plain black digipak, with pasted on front cover image and printed black and white insert.
Christian Vander's post-Magma "jazz" project, along the lines of Alice Coltrane's or Pharoah Sanders' 70s stuff mixed with his drumming in Magma. Fantastic. Vander comments: "3rd album of Offering and a decisive new step in my evolution. For the very first time, I apply my theories: don't dream, be aware of reality, don't lose yourself in the maze of intellectual endless sentences; Dig profoundly to learn how to go higher but with your feet still on the ground. It's a key-album, which announces what will be my next albums."
Offering is Magma mastermind Christian Vander's '70s style cosmic jazz meets Magma outfit, and this box set collects their four albums and additionally includes a half-hour bonus track. Thumbs up from Allan the Magma maniac.
Chris Duncan is a Oakland based artist whose multi-disciplined approach involves a rigorous accumulation and repetition. The bulk of his work deals in visual assemblages, often worked into systems imbued with the implications of transcendence, mysticism, and profundity while working with everyday materials. Sunlight in particular is a common tool, as a repeated symbol that albums becomes a sigil to Duncan and even as a bleaching agent for unarchival materials. He's occasionally works with time-based media (i.e. video and sound) to highlight and punctuate the graduated, coalesced, and accreted forms of his visual work; and the soundworks have blossomed into what he's now recording under the banner of Offing. It seems that the first side of this tape was all composed through harmonica, though Duncan has shaped the resultant sounds into bright, grind-organ like sounds that would be played by an army of circus monkeys that were trained to play a Terry Riley piece of psychedelic minimalism only to end up sounding like Angus MacLise's dilated wanderings of cymballon and percussion. The chromatics of the harmonica return on the second side, though the glistenings and shimmerings enjoyed extended passages of holy minimalism drone offset by the lulling roar of the ocean crashing into the side of California. A really lovely body of work from one of the true talents of the Bay Area's art community.
New Offspring. You've heard it on the radio, I guess. They gave away a million dollars to a fourteen year old girl who downloaded their single. That was nice of them.
This latest batch of tapes from local label Merz Tapes finds the label expanding and rebranding, now known as Merzbild, and no longer limiting themselves to cassettes. It is however this most recent batch of cassettes we're here to discuss. In this case, it's the first release (and apparently part on of a trilogy!) from Ogham, a duo made up of Kevin Gan Yuen of Sutekh Hexen, and Thomas Martin Ekelund of Trepaneringsritualen. The project is named for an early medieval alphabet, which according to the label is "known for obscuring runic inscription", and the sounds here reveal themselves to be equally obscure and obfuscated. Two sidelong sprawls, crumbling expanses of black ambience spread out over a landscape of murky and clatter, all blurred into heaving subterranean transmissions, greyed out and pocked with moaning metals and reverberating overtones, dripping water and a constant ambient thrum gives the whole thing a sort of post apocalyptic field recording vibe, the soundtrack to a lone figure, trudging through a desolate wasteland, ominous and cinematic, shot through with subtle streaks of melody, and wreathed in crackle and static that ebbs and flows, all seeming to drift in a bleary haze of abstract shimmer and soft clouds of gentle black noise.
The flipside is a much darker dronier affair, as if that same lone figure has chose to wander deeper beneath the ruins of a lost city, the hum of some mysterious machine at the center of the planet, revving up for some seismic event, the hum blossoming into a rib cage rattling drone, layered and corrosive, a black blur that threatens to swallow up the surrounding sounds, but which is soon joined by some unlikely percussion, a slow-mo cascade of tinkling delicate melodies, which are soon lost as that low end rumble explodes into a huge squall of swirling murk, a blown out blur that is surprisingly textured and nuanced, hiding chantlike vocals and strange muted melodies beneath the roiling, churning blackdrone surface, simultaneously crushing, and weirdly hypnotic.
Super sweet packaging, printed silver-on-black tapes, reflective silver and black J-card.
Over the top, '70s worshipping B-movie sci-fi stoner rock? Yes indeedy. You gotta give 'em props for this. Whacked out heavies Ogre from up in Maine - who we already liked for their riff rockin' retro-proto-doom-metal on such previous albums as Dawn Of The Proto-man and Seven Hells - have upped the ante with this new release, totally progging it up with a concept album consisting of just one long song (that's right, one track, but it's over 37 minutes long)! Although it's programmed as one track on the cd, it consists of eleven seamlessly segueing parts, including "II: End-Days", "IV: Queen Of Gasoline", "VIII: Battle At Doom Capital", and "XI: Dawn Of The Proto-man". To be sure, after a few listens, we're still not quite ready or able to summarize the narrative here, but we get the idea that it has something to do with a post-apocalyptic scenario involving environmental catastrophy, gasoline rationing and rampaging dog-men? It's all very Flash Gordon, campy and comic book-y (hence the Kirby-esqe cover artwork) with an underground comix '70s Heavy Metal magazine vibe.
Musically, at various points, and for various reasons, this reminds us of King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, Jesus Christ Superstar, and, let's see, Steamhammer's Speech (at about the 27 minute mark). Among other things... The storytelling aspect also might appeal to fans of Hammers Of Misfortune's The Bastard and Slough Feg's Traveller (which also features dog-men), though Ogre isn't at all power metal.
Vocally, Ogre are as always eccentric and expressive, the singer sounding sorta Ozzy-ish, but really dramatic, rising into unhinged screams. He's a bit Mike Patton-y, too (circa The Real Thing?). Once again, we have to say that the vocals here will make it or break it for a lot of folks. Well, that and the whole uber-prog concept deal. Yup, Plague Of The Planet is a love it or hate it proposition for sure. We happen to love it, and say kudos to them for going for it like this. And there's no question that the rollicking riffage on offer is gonna be a positive for anybody who likes, you know, heavy music. (Heavy this is, several members of Ogre also now having joined the new lineup of cult doomsters Blood Farmers by the way.)
This was originally released last year on the Japanese stoner/doom label Leaf Hound, who have unfortunately since folded. Thankfully, Shadow Kingdom in the USA has picked up this disc for domestic reissue.
Here's one of the latest two releases from Japan's super stoner Leaf Hound label (home to the likes of Church Of Misery and Sonic Flower). Orange Sunshine (also reviewed this list) are Dutch, and these guys, Ogre, are Americans (hailing from Portland, Maine to be precise). Leaf Hound apparently appreciated the promise of Ogre's self-released debut from a few years ago and made a good bet in putting out this even better sophomore effort. The guitars are thick and heavy, the rhythms rollicking. This is a heavy duty, '70s influenced steamroller stoner riff-rock righteousness. Damn. We can't imagine too many objections to this from those who love kick ass retro-proto-metal... except that the wildly expressive vocals might take some getting used to. They can be slightly pinched and definitely over-the-top, like a camp(ier) version of Ozzy Osbourne, sometimes breaking into a twang or dipping into a growl, but we think that works just great and personality-wise gives these guys just a bit more of lock on the "weird" which we're pretty sure is OK with them.
Clearly, their influences are doom metal classics like Sabbath and Saint Vitus, with hints of cult acts like Manilla Road and Blood Farmers (whose Eli Brown mastered this album). And a dash of Monster Magnet too. That means loads of psychedelic metal heaviness, played with a rabid sense of abandon but also plenty of sure-handed finesse. We're loving it. What else to say? Well we should also mention that they do a killer cover of Pentagram's "Review Your Choices". And that the track "Sperm Whale" includes a full-on drum solo. And oh yeah, Andee's especially thrilled that Ogre wrote a song here based on his favorite "adult" sci-fi novel, The Gas by Charles Platt, a notoriously violent and pornographic book first published in 1968. Sweet. Now that's rock and roll.
These outrageous '70s-sounding stoner rockers from up in Maine are back at last, after like a six year absence, with an excellent new opus of their over the top, hard riffing retro-rock. As we had expected, it's a doomy, proggy concoction, lots of Sabbath goin' on (the wailing, nasal vocals sound a bit like Mike Patton doing an Ozzy impression). Ogre don't hold anything back, this is a wild ride of unabashed old school heaviness with a theatrical flair, and lots of fuzz and wah.
Lyrically, the songs concern themselves with a range of subjects: the science-fantasy works of Roger Zelazny, Greek myth, the French and Indian Wars, drugs, madness. And then there's one mellow instrumental named after an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module.
Of further note, the song "Soulless Woman" is a cover, originally by an even more obscure band also named Ogre, who were actually from the '70s, and its sure seems to be a lost garage psych classic, giving this album a bit of a detour into more of an Uncle Acid or Satan's Satyrs direction, not that they were too far removed to begin with.
Italian import, on the label best known as the home of cult doomster Paul Chain. Gatefold miniature-lp style jacket.
Madlib's super talented younger brother Oh No has been doing a great job as the ambassador of '60s & '70s international psychedelia to the hip-hop world, liberally sampling all sorts of aQ faves, Turkish psych, Mediterranean pop, whatever struck his fancy, so Dr. No's Ethiopium should really come as no surprise, a whole record sampled and inspired by rare '60s and '70s Ethiopian soul, jazz, funk, folk and psychedelic rock, all chopped up and recontextualized into brief little snippets of bad ass Ethiopian groove, wreathed in record crackle, peppered with pops and clicks, adding a warm timeless texture to these jams, some are just straight ahead sampled, others are rearranged into lurching, stuttering rhythms, the basslines woozy and funky, horns wailing, the vocals often left intact, but just as often all mixed up, flipped backwards, woven together to create strange hiccupping vocal layers, the sound ranges from soulful ballads, to pounding jazz funk, to cinematic string laden drama, to swirling Ethiopian folk transformed into something way more buzzy and bouncy, some jams synth swaddled, others warped and warbly, the bass cranked up all over the place, you can almost imagine the Wu-Tang swooping in for a verse or too, these brief jams are just so groovy and heady and funky and kick ass.
Hands down THEE mix of the year!!!
We knew it was only a matter of time before someone sampled Turkish psych diva and AQ fave Selda. While that may have been too obvious of a move for the likes of Madlib, it comes across as a bold opening statement of distinction from Madlib's younger brother, Michael "not that Michael" Jackson aka Oh No. Oh No's third record marks a more noted evolution as producer from his last Galt MacDermot-inspired efforts like J Dilla's Donuts and Madlib's Beat Konducta series, Dr. No's Oxperiment is a solid instrumental hip-hop record of 28 tracks no longer than 2 minutes each. While none of the other samples are as easy to recognize or as obvious as Selda's, Oh No's main focus throughout the album is on fuzzy Turkish and Mediterranean psych pop breaks more akin to Dr. Delay and Cherrystones than Madlib or Dilla. But then about a third of the way through, on the track "No Guest List", things start to turn more soulful with more R&B inflected rhythms and vocal snippets that definitely place him closer to Dilla's camp though ultimately not quite as sublime. Despite some flaws, like the anti-climatic ending, Dr. No's Oxperiment is definitely a welcome addition to the ever-growing cannon of instrumental hip-hop. Now that some sibling rivalry has been established, hopefully the Jackson brothers will be keener to keep upping the ante on both of their future releases.
Holy shit does this rule: hip hop producer Oh No crafts a whole record using nothing but samples from DOLEMITE, one of the most legendary blaxploitation films (and soundtracks) ever. Rudy Ray Moore is the mother fuckin' OG. Oh No samples wah guitars, slithery seventies grooves, killer symphonic snippets, movie samples, female vox, harpsichords, guitar funk, smooth soul, wheezing organs, funky horns, all sorts of rad, weird shit deftly looped and layered to the point that unless you were super familiar with the film you probably wouldn't know it was Dolemite at all, but odds are, plenty of rap jams before this borrowed bits from Dolemite anyway, cuz all of these sounds are super well suited for repurposed looping, and Oh No kills it, funky as fuck, catchy as hell, big booming beats, fuzzy synth buzz, woozy rib cage rattling basslines, and a wicked array of underground hip hop royalty doing their thing over these killer jams: MF Doom, Chino Xl, Erick Sermon, Phife Dawg, Sticky Fingaz, Prozack and loads more.
Do John Dwyer and his Oh Sees comrades ever sleep??!! In the last year it seems like they are either playing a show in town, on tour (by the way they are sooooo on fire live right now!) or putting out records. But hey we ain't complaining cause the less they sleep the more rad music we get. This new split with Paul Cary (we don't know much about him), finds Oh Sees (what happened to the THEE?) sounding more slowed down and slightly stoned, which is a side of the band we do really dig, but don't get to hear that often.
Paul Cary reminds us a bit of The Entrance Band all stripped down and playing on someone's front porch, sort of a rustic bluesy lo-fi folk. But like us you are probably here for (Thee) Oh Sees side of this split which finds them doing two covers, "Hey Buddy" by Iran and "Coma" by Trio. Both tracks were included on the now out of print cd that came with the Zork's Tape Bruise LP release a few months back. And we're stoked that more people will finally get a chance to here these covers as they were two of our favorite tracks from that collection. No matter what incarnation or direction (Thee) Oh Sees take they seem to be able to do no wrong as of late, and we have to say we feel pretty lucky to get to see them play as much as we do!
Singles collection number three from these local garage rock heroes. The first was a double lp, and while packed with rarities, collected a lot of the singles we already had, but this one, this one we were super excited about cuz it gathers up a ton of tracks, that we, and presumably many of you, were never able to track down AT ALL, including two jams from their split with David Shrigley, their track from the Bruise Cruise split with Ty Segall, as well as the tracks from a split with Quintron as well as a split with The Mallard. They also toss in their tracks from the two Group Flex comps, as well as one track from the Floating Coffin sessions and two unreleased tracks, so minus 2 or 3 tracks, if you're anything like us, this is essentially like a whole new Oh Sees record!
And since it's all singles, it's all over the map, even moreso than Oh Sees records proper. There's the goofy garage pop lope of opener "Ugly Man", there's the percolating, fuzzed out jangle of "Girls Who Smile", and the blown out, almost Redd Kross sounding "Crushed Glass", everything in the red and blown out, a sixties style psychedelic stomp that kills. There's a killer cover of Sonic youth's "Burning Spear" that we might dig even more than the original, "What You Need" is all tribal drumming, Dwyer's reverbed high pitched yips, and yet still more fuzzed out guitars, heavy on the effects and studio fuckery too. "FBI2" from the split with Quintron finds Dwyer and co. doing their own version of a Quintron jam, a seriously primitive swampy graveyard garage rock stomp, while "Wait Let's Go" is pure jangle pop bliss out. "Always Flying" from the second Group Flex is a cool broody, fuzzed out garage pop dirge, all spare and swaggery, which leads right into "Devil Again" from the Floating Coffin sessions, and it sounds like it could easily have made it on the record proper, all sci-fi organs and garagey groove, rollicking and rambunctious, and finally, two live tracks, the first from the SF Eagle, an extended psych-fuzz groove, with some seriously kick ass breakdowns and some wild guitar slinging, and an even more lo-fi / raw live track captured at Death By Audio, which captures the sweat soaked bloody knuckled energy of the band pretty goddamn perfectly.
Packaged in a cool eye popping reflective silver digipack (vinyl out in December), and features the latest in the ever changing Castle Face logos, this one maybe our favorite, a grimacing castle/turret/volcano with braces!
John Dwyer has been a busy bee as of late. His great new free jazz outfit Swords & Sandals has been playing fiery short sets all around town. He's started his own record label, Castle Face and his first release on the label is his latest Oh Sees (OCS) record which just might be the best one yet! Produced by Kelly Stoltz, Sucks Blood has a wonderful focus that gets stoney, blurry and all bleary and sunsoaked yet the songs still feel so well crafted and the record so perfectly paced. The opening track finds Dwyer reconstructing his garage rock roots with a smokin' lo-fi burner that would make Roky Erickson proud. As the record moves on there is an intoxicating hazy moodiness that emanates so effortlessly from every track start to finish. We love how timeless this record sounds and feels. It's doesn't at all feel like a part of any current trend or scene. Instead it sounds like someone locked up in their room with a window half open as sun, clouds and wind mingle in the sky and songs grow and blossom organically. With no one to please but himself, you get the feeling that Dwyer was able to totally relax and make exactly the record he's been wanting to make for ages. We've already been listening to this in our headphones as we walk through the city, on those afternoons made for wandering aimlessly just to see where you might end up, and this is the perfect soundtrack for sure. Whether laying in the grass, or sitting on the porch, or staying in bed till late in the afternoon, this is the perfect sounds for being busy doing nothing. So totally nice!
The Oh Sees have changed a lot since they were the OCS. Back then, Oh Sees frontman John Dwyer had his Coachwhips, a wild sweat soaked, garage stomp party, furious and frenzied, throbbing and in-the-red, so OCS was the outlet for Dwyer to explore the other sides of his multiple musical personality. The debut OCS record (released on tUMULt) was two discs, one of mostly solo acoustic guitar, a super intimate bedroom folk, all dusty and crackly, warm and super intimate, bits of damaged Casio, warbly old vinyl, damaged FX, lovingly crafted into some sort of heartfelt lo-fi sonic loveletter. The other disc was more noisy, super abstract, blown out blasts of free jazz weirdness, drones and rumbles, howling feedback, white noise, pink noise, and every color in between. OCS 2, 3 and 4 followed a similar pattern, a sort of lonely lo-fi homebrewed indie folk, off kilter and melancholy, wistful, damaged and dreamy.
But with the dissolution of the Coachwhips, came a name change for OCS, now The Ohsees, or sometimes The Oh Sees, a change in sound, and a transformation into a full band.
While not as freaked out and furious as the Coachwhips, the Oh Sees new record sounds more like the long lost CW's than any of Dwyer's records since. Garage-y jangle, shuffling drums, the vocals distorted, the songs simple and stripped down, but the big difference is that here Dwyer splits the vocals with bandmate Brigid Dawson, the result is truly endearing harmonies, with Dwyer often the wailing counterpoint to Dawson's sweet angelic croon. And songs that sometimes sound like alien versions of that classic Phil Spector girl group sound. But at its heart, the sound is still fuzzy and buzzy and skeletal, groovy and garage rocky, wouldn't be hard to imagine this disc on In The Red, or see these guys on tour with the Dirtbombs or the Country Teasers or the Husbands. (Bonus points for having a song about aQ pal and local artist extraordinaire Maria Forde!)
Weird too that it's out on Tomlab, it IS blissy and fuzzy and poppy, but not nearly as much as everything else on Tomlab, which is why it's only -through- Tomlab and is really on Dwyer's just launched Castle Face label�
Big booklet, with lyrics, and kick ass eye popping artwork on the front and back!
Got one final batch of these direct from the label, last copies we'll ever see, so one final chance to grab one of these, featuring some early recorded weirdness from Mr. John Dwyer, aka OCS, aka Thee Oh Sees, long before Thee Oh Sees became a proper band, when it was just Dwyer and his four track. Originally released as a super limited 6" vinyl / 3" cd set, first in a run of 51 copies, then a couple years later in a run of 52 copies, and now finally, this is available again in a slightly more copious pressing, now a double 7", one black vinyl, one a sort of watery cola colored vinyl, housed in a screen printed cardboard box with some really sweet original Dwyer artwork, and including a printed insert, each one hand numbered (420 copies total!).
And for those familiar with the Oh Sees, and more specifically, the older stuff (specifically, the rad double cd on tUMULt), the stuff here hews way closer to that all over the map, ramshackle, home recorded sound, this isn't sweaty sixties style garage pop, nope this is a dizzying collection of eclectic home brewed sounds, from soft abstract folk, to dreamy drones, to squalls of noisy weirdness, to twisted deconstructed pop, to drugged out experimental freakouts, all fractured damaged and wonderful and so so so good.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
No doubt about it, Mr. John Dwyer is one prolific man. His currently most active endeavor is The Ohsees (aka OCS), and whether intentionally or not, it is very of the moment, and one of Dwyer's best. His partner in crime is local artist and musician Patrick Mullins. At times The Cool Death Of Island Raiders sounds like a dronier and even more stoned Ariel Pink... which we've been diggin' heavily. The album's title reminds us of those afterschool adventures we made up when we were kids, and the music is a lot like children's songs in a demented playground complete with occasional birds chirping.
Lots of shimmery cymbal and tambourine washes, off-kilter strummed guitar and unexpected visits from occlusive noise clouds, while through those clouds emerges layers of tweaked falsetto vocals. The somewhat goofily menacing back cover photo capture the album's mood pretty accurately, slightly unsettling verging on creepy but with a sense of humor at work as well. Produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame the album is paced really well and shows that Dwyer's still got plenty up his sleeves. Oh and like all the OCS records, put on your headphones for an optimal listening experience.
You know the drill by now. Dwyer and company kick up some fuzzy, distorted lo-fi sixties pop infused garage rock that totally rocks. Crunchy, distorted, fuzzy, groovy, doused in reverb and delay, the vocals a distorted yelp, the guitars all jangly, this time around there's even some harmonica, stomping and hooky and kick ass. That's just the A side. The flipside just might be one of our favorite Oh Sees jams yet, all brooding and power poppy, reminding us of the Wipers, but with strange bloopy keyboards, and a weary washed out minor key vibe, so super catchy, we find ourselves humming it through the days, and running to the front of the store when it gets played. Awesome.
Insanely limited, to only 638 copies, we got about 50, which is probably all we'll ever get. Hand screened covers, in all sorts of different colors and variations, same with the vinyl, white, black, pink, blue, green, and all sorts of marbled in betweens, it's random though so don't ask, you'll get what you get, and it will be cool. Includes an insert with original Dwyer art and of course each one is hand numbered!
Latest from SF garage pop wrecking crew Thee Oh Sees, originally meant to be released as two separate eps, and presented here as a sort of two on one, it's another killer collection of crazy varied weirdo pop radness from John Dwyer and his compatriots, opening with what might be their most classic sounding pop jam to date in the form of the first ep's title track, all driving wandering bassline, echoey vox, simple shuffling propulsive drumming, and Dwyer's distinctive croon, not to mention all manner of tangled guitar melodies, and a bit of sax skronk right at the beginning, which leads right into a fat fuzzy chunk of Stax infused organ driven fuzz rock that kills, the trippy vox transforming it into something that could only be Thee Oh Sees, with a cool sing along chorus, and some seriously fierce guitaring, in fact, this is one of the best sounding Oh Sees records yet, thick and crunchy and fuzzy. But like all their records, the sound veers dramatically all over the place, "Robber Barons" is all lush and fuzzed out, almost shoegazey, the sounds blurred into a hazy back drop for some surprisingly sweet vocals, and with a killer main melody, which leads right into the punky pop stomp of "Chem-Farmer" with its organ stabs, loping bassline and big drums, it's like the 'break down' of some classic sixties soul groover transformed into a whole song, and finally Carrion Crawler finishes off with a short blast of killer fuzzy psych pop.
Which is where The Dream takes over, ep #2, and while they were both recorded during the same session, we were maybe expecting something totally different, but it's like Carrion Crawler part two, the opening title track another winner, with Dwyer going full falsetto, and the organs buzzing all over the place, the sound getting seriously sixties for sure. The rest of The Dream seems to be a bit more lo-fi and reverby, "Crack In Your Eye" might be our favorite, reminding us of the Crystal Stilts, that sort of dour organ driven downer pop, but Thee Oh Sees add some extra tangles of psych guitar, but keep it droney and fantastically hypnotic, before finishing off with "Heavy Doctor" a fuzzy jangle fest, based around a wicked riff, and some more of that super active driving bass, Dwyer's vocals riding above the crunch and buzz, with some super catchy melodies, and some seriously rad psychguitar.
What more to say? Fans already know they want this, and odds are, even if you've never heard these guys before, once you do, you'll be a fan as well...
Hot on the heels of their recent double lp singles collection comes yet ANOTHER new full length from local garage rock heroes Thee Oh Sees, and it's a good one, but unlike the sweaty stomp of blown out crunch of recent records, Castlemania is a bit more fuzzy and washed out, hazy and reverby, could be because it's not actually a 'proper' new full-band Oh Sees record, instead, it's a little bit like a return to Thee Oh Sees of old (back when 'they' were a 'he'), with Oh Sees mainman John Dwyer playing all the instruments himself, vocals, drums, guitar, flute, bass, clarinet, keyboards, trumpet, synth, harmonica and percussion, the whole thing recorded in his former Haight Street apartment (this being the last thing recorded there before, according to the liner notes, "control was assumed by rich assholes").
That said, Castlemania is absolutely an Oh Sees record, it only takes about 10 seconds of album opener "I Need Seed" before you're whisked away by Dwyer's reverby jangle fuzz pop, but as mentioned above, the vibe is way more summery and sunshiney, the guitars are acoustic, fluttering flutes, simple percussion, the vocals wreathed in reverb, but WAY less distorted than usual, heavy on the hooks, lots of jangle, background 'oooohs' and 'aaaaahs'. The awesomely titled second track "Corprophagist (A Bath Perhaps)" sounds like classic Oh Sees, but stripped way down, laced with bells and electronic bloops, with a killer main hook, some fantastic vocal harmonies, more flutes, the drums a minimal shuffle, and so it goes.
The rest of the record follows suit, from the string laden balladic wooziness of "Stinking Cloud" with its druggy atmosphere and twisted brass, to "Pleasure Blimps" that almost sounds more like the Fresh & Onlys than Thee Oh Sees. There are still some crunchy garage jams, but for the most part, it's way more strummy and jangly, groovy and fuzzy and catchy almost sixties style pop, appropriately warped and tweaked of course.
The record finishes off with some awesome (and unlikely) covers. "I Won't Hurt You" by sixties psychedelic pop folk outfit West Coast Pop Experimental Band is a murky brooding pop gem, with woozy washed out low end, muted propulsive rhythms, and some gorgeous boy/girl harmonies, the boy parts provided by Ty Segall, the girl parts provided by Oh Sees keyboardist Brigid Dawson. "If I Stay Too Long" by post Squirrel Bait Louisville rockers Big Wheel sounds like it could be an Oh Sees original, chiming guitars, a little bit of twang, big drums, and a super hooky falsetto chorus, and finally a song called "What Are We Craving" by sixties/seventies folk singer Norma Tanega (who dated Dusty Springfield!), also sung by Dawson, a loping simple rhythm emerges from a cloud of strange reverby percussion, droning wheezing organs laid over the top, the atmosphere hazy and softly psychedelic, the vocals angelic and drifty, a gritty garage rock vamp slowed down into a hazy strummy jangly fuzzfolk ballad, dreamy and druggy and divine.
On both cd and vinyl, the vinyl version is a double lp, the 4th side adorned with a killer etching by artist William Keihn who also did the cover art!
John Dwyer, one of the most prolific performers in recent memory, returns with yet another new record by his band Thee Oh Sees. And by "his band" we are not discounting the contributions of the other members because on Dog Poison, all the instruments are played by J.P.D. all by himself! Percussion, guitars, vocals, keyboards, even a flute on a few of the tracks. Though definitely more fuzzed out and raucous than Help, the last Oh Sees full-length, Dog Poison draws on similar veins of '60s pop and proto-punk, sculpting songs only one of which is over three minutes (and that just barely). Way more loud and rocking than other releases that were all Dwyer, it makes sense that Dog Poison is ostensibly by "Thee Oh Sees" rather than "OCS" or some other variation on that theme. It's like the old OCS is emulating what has become Thee new Oh Sees.
Those of you who think you might miss the boy/girl vocals of other Oh Sees releases, do not despair. There are multiple vocal layers on almost all of the tracks, most using "regular" singing and falsetto that echoes the perfect combination John and Brigid have found on other recordings. Sometimes, as on "The Sun Goes All Around", the lead falsetto vocals are backed up by (believe it) even higher falsetto backing vocals.
Clocking in at just under 25 minutes, these 10 songs will have you on the dance floor in no time.
It seems like the demise of SF's favorite garage rockers has been greatly exaggerated, considering there's now this, a brand new record, and the fact that the band are about to embark on another massive tour. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, save our mourning for some future date, and for now, can revel in yet another blast of garage pop brilliance from John Dwyer and company, whose latest, Drop, is as we might have predicted, a doozy!
After a brief bit of percolating synth shimmer, which had us thinking that maybe Dwyer's solo record as Damaged Bug might have bled over into his main project, the song explodes into what might be the heaviest hookiest jam yet from these guys, but fuzzed out guitars, swirling sci-fi synths, almost stonery and spacey and psychedelic sounding, but as always rife with melodies and hooks galore. And from there on out, it's just classic Oh Sees, fuzzy, jangly, hooky, albeit with a bit more synth than we remember (seems like maybe that whole Damaged Bug thing did have an effect on Thee Oh Sees!), "Encrypted Bounce" adds wild tangled angular guitars, and squiggly synth shimmer, to a stripped down garage groove, as does "Savage Victory", all spaced out and laced with strange sound effects, big blurts of fuzz guitar crunch, all trippy, and very psychedelic, with fields of swirling backwards guitars and affected noisescapes, that experimental noisiness all over Drop, the band crafting some of their catchiest music yet, but then going hogwild on the psychedelia, creating a sound that's at once totally beholden to the classics, but all tangled up and twisted into new, weird, far out shapes, and Dwyer not shying away from whatever the fuck he wants to do, whether it's the strange horn blurts on "Put Some Reverb On My Brother", the almost Redd Kross sounding sixties buzz pop of the title track, the lysergic Beatles-esque baroque pop of "King's Nose", or the synth heavy shoegaze trip out of "Transparent World". And yet, it all remains distinctly Thee Oh Sees. And we say it every time, but this really might be the best record yet from these guys, and if it really is the last one, what a way to go. But here's hoping, that even with Dwyer's move down south, they can keep this going, cuz we're already playing this to death, and already looking forward to more...
Only on cd for now, lp repress coming soon!
Running out of superlatives for these SF garage pop superheroes, fronted by the tireless music machine John Dwyer, and yet, another Oh Sees record pops up, and we can help but get just as excited as we were about the last one. We've made a couple record from Dwyer and Co. our Record Of The Week, but really, we're beginning to think we could have bestowed that honor on any/all of 'em, certainly the last handful, and most definitely this one. Everything we dig about these guys is present and in full effect, the sound is great, the songs catchy as hell, and of course, plenty of whatthefuck weirdness going on.
The opener this time is classic Oh Sees, with its jangly shuffling verse, and explosive distorted reverb drenched chorus, not to mention lots of distorted vocal 'whoop's, as well as a killer guitar/synth harmony breakdown before tumbling right back into it. Lots of background oooooh's too of course, and some wicked guitar crunch, this opening jam reminding us a lot of a more raw lo-fi Redd Kross, which is definitely not a bad thing. The follow up cranks up the guitar, in-the-red and blown out, but wrapped around a pretty little fuzz pop ditty, the combo of distorto guitar and lilting melody always a pretty potent one. Add in some echo drenched falsetto vox, and what sounds like a male falsetto/female vox harmony, all over tribal drums, and weird little guitar squeaks and scrapes before it's right back into it. Our temptation is to go song by song, cuz they're pretty much all great, but by now most folks already know what Thee Oh Sees sound like and odds are you either dig em or you don't (although we're probably guessing you do). But like all Oh Sees records, there are plenty of surprises, one here is the almost ska sounding title track, that starts off furious guitaring under ethereal vocals, before breaking down into aforementioned ska sounding breakdown, but somehow, it totally works. There's also the creepy crawl of "Night Crawler", which starts out scary, but somehow blossoms into what might be the catchiest riff on the whole record. The closer too is a cool brooder, all stripped down and minimal, and rife with lots of strings, and doo wop-y background vox, and a coll crumbly outro, all gristly static under cello. But in between all of that weirdness, is plenty of classic bash pop garage rock genius, hooks galore, lots of jangle and buzz, kinetic rhythms, varying productions, from murky and blown out to crystalline and super high fidelity, tons of falsetto vox this time around, seems like more than ever, but all taken together, another kick ass, and fantastically idiosyncratic blast of hyper catchy fuzz pop garage jangle radness from these perpetual aQ faves!!
Killer cover art too!
New single from these unbeatable garage pop faves, featuring stuff tracked during the Mutilator Defeated At Last sessions: A-side "Fortress" is a new one, a hypnotic, dream-pop ripper, and then there's the even dreamier "Man In A Suitcase" on the flip, a longtime live staple from the old days.
Listening to Help, it's almost impossible to hear anything but mere traces of the chaotic noise rock path John Dwyer followed to make it to Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS, and Ohsees), but it's that noisy past, and penchant for musical shit stirring, that informs the jangly garage pop on Help, and transforms the band's jangle and shuffle and pound into near perfect buzzy fuzzy catchy retro pop, and makes it easily the best Oh Sees record yet. And a definite contended for (garage) pop record of the year.
Most of us were introduced to Dwyer via his two piece noise rock costume rock combo Pink And Brown (after brief stints in some well known Providence outfits), but unlike most of the costumed joke bands at the time, P&B offered some serious songsmithery along with the unhinged live shows and audience baiting. A brief stint drumming for SF grindlords Burmese led directly into the band that brought Dwyer to worldwide attention, the Coachwhips. Arguably one of the best live bands around, the Coachwhips made up for what they lacked in actual songs with sweat and alcohol soaked performances, utter chaos, and sometimes literally, ultra destructive houseshows. Coachwhips shows were all about the energy, the vibe, jumping around, flailing wildly, getting wrecked and having a blast. Sometimes though, that energy was difficult to translate to home listening. Take away the sweaty throng and the deafening volume and, well why would you want to do that?
And so came the Oh Sees, originally called OCS, and a double cd release on Andee's tUMULt label a few years back, essentially a solo record, one disc of folky fluttery lo-fi twang flecked pop, another of corrosive textured noise experiments, which ended up being, for many of us, one of our favorite post Pink And Brown Dwyer documents. OCS transformed into The Oh Sees and became a real band, and seemed poised to follow in the sonic footsteps of the Coachwhips, stripped down garage rock, super lo-fi, lost of brittle high end, yelped distorted vocals, tribal drumming, but there was definitely something more, more refined, more catchy, more timeless sounding, something much more than garage rock, a sound that reminded us of sixties girl groups, of Phil Spector productions, raw and primal, but lush and expansive and catchy. But that catchy lush side of the Oh Sees remained hidden beneath squalls of tweeter abuse and fractured effects, a wall of fuzz and buzz more than an actual wall of sound. Until now.
Help finds the band making their first record for garage rock stalwarts In The Red, which is ironic as this is Thee Oh Sees' least typically garage rock record yet. Instead, the sound is total pop, plucked fresh from a time capsule buried in the sixties, the guitars jangle as much as crunch, lots of reverb, the vocals wreathed in a haze of delay, lots of female vox, the choruses are lush, the drums are still tribal, but much more measured, often quite spare, the arrangements though are anything but classic, sometimes getting super abstract, but never losing their catchiness, sometimes adding all sorts of extra distorted overload, but just as quickly slipping into something smooth and groovy. Minus the weird moments and the fucked up productions, some of these songs do really sound like they were just transported forward four decades.
"Meat Step Lively" starts off all Cramps-y, with a fuzzy grinding main riff, simple pounding rhythm, but adds some awesome female vocals and background 'ooooohs', some spidery lead guitars, and coolest of all breaks it down with about a minute to go into a swinging sixties smoke-y jazzy flute flecked groove. "The Turn Around" is a minute of blown out drum damage and fractured effects, but wrapped around a sing songy main riff, and some cool distorted and reverbed vox, in total Guided By Voices fashion, they truncate what could have been the jam of the record, and launch into "Can You See", which is all slithery and washed out, with angelic background vocals, shuffling drums, and a cool dreamy bridge, but the whole thing still manages to sound ominous and intense and weirdly sexy.
The record closes with "Peanut Butter Oven", which we first heard on the recent (and sadly now out of print) Awesome Vistas 12", and it's obvious why this was the single, it definitely is THE jam of the record, with it's simple stripped down jangle, workmanlike drum beat, and soaring minor key strings, and let's not forget the gorgeous harmony vocals draped over the singing strings and that irresistible main riff.
And so it goes, every track here is a gem, each one offers up something new, some twisted take on that classic sixties garage rock sound, but it's that sound revved up and filtered through Dwyer's gloriously cracked pop sensibilities, bathed in buzz and fuzz or stripped way down and left shimmery and crystalline, sometimes wrapped in HUGE hooks or allowed to simmer and slither, the catchiness subtle yet so irresistible, and unlike past efforts, even at its noisiest, the noise element seems more an organic part of the sound, and is often shaped into something barely recognizable as noisy.
We knew Dwyer and company had it in them, and now they've proven it, BIG TIME. Dying to see what they come up with next, if they could possibly one up this here disc, but hell, for now, Help has us way satisfied. And records like these are exactly why they invented that repeat button on your cd player. Folks with turntable will just have to get up and flip the record over and over and over, again and again and again.
WAY recommended.
Originally released as a vinyl-only 12" for this year's Record Store Day, this four song ep from beloved garage rockers Thee Oh Sees is now available as a post-RSD cdep. So for folks who may have missed out, or were maybe even waiting for a possible compact disc version, this is your lucky day.
The record opens up sounding like a lo-fi version of Wall Of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", all shuffling drums, and swirling sci-fi FX, the opener "Grown In A Graveyard soon adds echo drenched guitars, billowing dubbed out chords, reverbed yelps, building into a serious psychedelic swirl, not overtly catchy, more sort of tranced out and hypnotic. "Sewer Fire" is a slinky bass driven groove, the bassline wrapped in still more thick billows of crumbling distortion, before exploding into some fuzzy reverb heavy garage rock crunch.
"Humans Be Swayed" starts off with fluttery flutes, over tribal drums and low slung bass slither, again, big guitars, chiming jangles wrapped in noisy squalls of psychedelic fuzz, the rest of the song unwinding with dueling boy-girl vocals, some searing distorto lead guitars, a cool woozy ultra melodic drifty wind down ending, that gets downright dreamy, and leads directly into "Candy Clock", which is the poppiest jam here, all big booming Beach Boys drumming, over circus-y harpsichord (courtesy of Kelley Stotlz), the result being a sort of vintage sounding Bee Gees slab of lush, baroque pop that might be one of the coolest songs we've heard from Dwyer & Co.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With every new Thee Oh Sees release, we have this fantasy of writing the shortest review, like, "Here's the new Oh Sees record, just do yourself a favor and click add to cart, you know you want to...", but we know there are those who want to know if it's really worth it, because after so many releases, do we really need to buy another one? To which we say, YES! Tell your brain to shut up and add it to your cart already!!! Yet still this may not convince everyone, so, ok, we'll do the legwork and try and break it down for you.
This is the first Oh Sees record since their self-imposed hiatus a year or so ago after leaving SF and moving to LA. A year ain't so long to an average band, but with the prolific output of John Dwyer, who is not only heading this band but also has a new Damaged Bug album out (in stock now!), and is also busy co-running the Castle Face label which is on an unprecedented roll of great releases from Pow!, Male Gaze, Warm Soda, The Blind Shake and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, how he finds time to make not only a record, but a great record is beyond us. But with that hiatus, Dwyer completely reformed the group, while staying true to their sound, and really focussed on the studio aspects of the recording process, with beefed up emphasis on organs, synths and acoustic guitars. They have also apparently been listening to lots of Amon Duul, Flower Travellin' Band, Love, Can and early Joy Division.
The cinematic raw power is still there, in fact it's increased. The whole first side is largely devoted to thrusting the energy through the creep of dark psych fairy tales of disintegrating flesh and magical evil. These are not new themes for the band, but there is a commingling of tropes that used to be more separated on previous releases, the pummeling faster songs versus the slower zoners. Here the pummel is tweaked with peaks of sublimity and the slower prettier songs are laced with menace like a minefield. In fact the slow zone, marked by the tracks "Sticky Hulks" and "Holy Smoke", are some of the dreamiest we have heard from them, with organ fugues and strings that leave us floating before the fury drops back in. Similar in scope to Floating Coffin, Putrifiers II and Carrion Crawler / The Dream. An instant classic!
Vinyl version includes download, cd don't need it.
We'll not get too in depth in this review because this puppy is super limited, and they'll most likely be gone before you know it, but this ep from the ever prolific Thee Oh Sees is another solid release on Chris Johanson's Awesome Vistas label (see also the Linda Hagood LP reviewed elsewhere on this list.). While we love their full lengths, Thee Oh Sees really kick out the jams on their shorter format releases. Four songs, all really killer (and they sound really awesome at both speeds!, as we accidentally found out), full of that sixties big beat cavernous murky wall of feedback pop that we love. "Kingsmeat" is all melancholy Farfisa over upbeat rhythms and ringing feedback tones before turning up the Bo Diddley pace for "The Freak Was Clean". "Quadrospazzed" speaks for itself as the real hard-hitting burner here before the almost shoe-gazy "Kids In Cars" winds us down quite nicely. Remember, these are super limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not sure what else to say really at this point about John Dwyer and Thee Oh Sees crew. We've loved pretty much everything they've put out, we've made at least one an aQ Record Of The Week, heck, Andee even put out the very first Thee Oh Sees record (back when it was just Dwyer and was a whole 'nother beast simply called OCS), but as with every record, Putrifiers II has much to recommend it, and has a lot of cool stuff going on, that definitely makes it super distinctive, and as seems to be the case, with every new record, we find ourselves proclaiming it our favorite, and looks like that trend is going to continue, cuz Putrifiers II is so great. All it should take is a minute or two of opener "Wax Face", with its spidery snake charmer melody that leads directly into some seriously fuzzed out garage rock pound, super melodic, with swoonsome falsetto vox, woozy basslines, and of course hooks galore. The song gets all droney, and psychedelic, with some killer leads, and a killer stretch midsong where the vocals harmonize with the guitar, we're tempted to say it's the raddest jam yet, but that would be foolish with nine more songs to go! (That's right, this is a ten song "ep", more like a full-length really.)
The one thing that Putrefiers does display, is a definite sixties pop vibe, from the fuzzy almost Elephant Six sound of "Hang A Picture", to some of the other tracks that take the Beach Boys and run them through an old beat up distortion pedal and douse them liberally with sweat and blood, taking the hooky dreaminess and harnessing it to some serious psych fuzz bliss. The whole record is brimming with amazing songs and sounds, "So Nice" is a gorgeous bit of buzz drenched balladry, with some swirling strings and weird processed vox, "Cloud #1" is some super abstract minimal drone music, that reminds us of Amps For Christ, "Flood's New Light" is total girl group worship, while the title track is a gorgeously catchy reverb heavy garage pop dirge that is WAY catchier than it has any right to be.
The final four songs definitely make up a sort of orchestral garage pop suite, the woozy shimmery ballroom vibe of "Will We Be Scared", the fuzzed out chug and churn of "Lupine Dominus", which has verses that would be right at home in a much dreamier, less tripped out and psychedelic pop song, "Goodnight Baby" is another string driven bit of jangly power pop, and finally, "Wicked Park" is lush and lovely baroque popsmithery, that sounds like it could be a cover of The Zombies, or even some old Bee Gees B side.
Another killer record from Dwyer and Co., and yeah, currently our favorite Thee Oh Sees record. At least until next time... The cd comes in a digipack, while the vinyl version comes in a cool die-cut jacket, and includes an mp3 download.
This one might just be for superfans only, but then again, maybe not...
It's one song, one sided, costs $15, and is a live version of a previously released track (from the Peanut Butter Oven ep), but hell we know how Oh Sees fans are, OBSESSIVE, and this is a pretty sweet object. Besides the music, it's pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl, comes in an eye popping black and red heavy duty jacket, and the B-side features an incredible etching, all patterns and pumpkins and shapes and leering mouths, super sweet.
The original track, already a bit sprawling and jammy, gets the full on live workout, recorded at a house show in SF, the song sounds pretty much like the original at first, all shuffling drums, reverb drenched guitar jangle, yelpy echoed vox, repetitive and kinetic, but then the song stretches waaaaaay out, breaks down, sounds a little like the parts in old songs where the band gets introduced, but instead, there's a drum solo, and the track spaces out and gets all sixties shimmery and dubbed out, to the point that is seems like enough of a new jam that you'd probably want it even if you already had the Peanut Butter Oven version. Cool stuff. And LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
This one shouldn't need to much of a description, these have been flying off the shelves since we first got them in. Originally intended to be a Record Store Day release, this double lp collects essentially ALL of the Oh Sees singles: The Carol Anne 7", Peanut Butter Oven 12", the split 7" with Paul Cary, the split 7" with The Intelligence, the Grave Blockers ep, the Tidal Wave single, the Blood In Your Ear single, the Sub Pop single, the tour split 7" with Jay Reatard, as well as a few previously unreleased surprises. The first lp is actually the same stuff that was on the bonus cd that came with the Zork's Tape Bruise lp released on Kill Shamen, while the second lp is newly compiled. It's a pretty bad ass collection, Thee Oh Sees were and are definitely one of those bands who seem to do their best rocking in the short format, and these are definitely some of our favorite Oh Sees jams. Absolutely essential for fans of course, and newbies, well, we can't really think of a better place to start.
Need more? Here are several excerpts from reviews of a few of the singles included in this collection:
Blood In Your Ear: Some fuzzy, distorted lo-fi sixties pop infused garage rock that totally rocks. Crunchy, distorted, fuzzy, groovy, doused in reverb and delay, the vocals a distorted yelp, the guitars all jangly, this time around there's even some harmonica, stomping and hooky and kick ass. That's just the A side. The flipside just might be one of our favorite Oh Sees jams yet, all brooding and power poppy, reminding us of the Wipers, but with strange bloopy keyboards, and a weary washed out minor key vibe, so super catchy, we find ourselves humming it through the days, and running to the front of the store when it gets played. Awesome.
Peanut Butter Oven: Full of that sixties big beat cavernous murky wall of feedback pop that we love. "Kingsmeat" is all melancholy Farfisa over upbeat rhythms and ringing feedback tones before turning up the Bo Diddley pace for "The Freak Was Clean", before the almost shoe-gazy "Kids In Cars" winds us down quite nicely.
Tidal Wave: Totally perfect, ultra catchy blasts of pure garage pop genius!
Split with The Intelligence: The two Ohsees songs end before you know it but they're so good and infectious that we've just been playing them over and over and over.
You get the picture. Super limited too, of course. Pressed on red and green vinyl, and housed in a topless magic marker fake tattoo Oh Sees fan boy sleeve. Nice! We have a bunch, but it's sold out, and the label is in the process of making more, so if you order one, and we've already run out, might take a week or two to get them back in.
Two of of our favorite albums from these local garage poppers get paired up and re-released on this super limited cassette, awesomely designed to look like one of those old Columbia Records And Tapes Club releases ($13 tapes for 1�)...
So, here's what we had to say about The Cool Death Of Island Raiders when we reviewed it way back in 2006 (it's now out of print on both cd and lp):
No doubt about it, Mr. John Dwyer is one prolific man. The sound of Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS), whether intentionally or not, is very of the moment, and at the time one of Dwyer's best. His partner in crime on Cool Death was local artist and musician Patrick Mullins. At times The Cool Death Of Island Raiders sounds like a dronier and even more stoned Ariel Pink... which we've been diggin' heavily too. The album's title reminds us of those afterschool adventures we made up when we were kids, and the music is a lot like children's songs in a demented playground complete with occasional birds chirping.
Lots of shimmery cymbal and tambourine washes, off-kilter strummed guitar and unexpected visits from occlusive noise clouds, while through those clouds emerges layers of tweaked falsetto vocals. The album's mood is slightly unsettling verging on creepy but with a sense of humor at work as well. Produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame the album is paced really well and shows that Dwyer's still got plenty up his sleeve.
And here's what we had to say about Sucks Blood when it first came out in 2007:
John Dwyer has been a busy bee as of late (noticing a theme?). His great new free jazz outfit Swords & Sandals has been playing fiery short sets all around town. He's started his own record label, Castle Face and his first release on the label is his latest from Thee Oh Sees (OCS), which is fast becoming one of our favorites! Produced by Kelly Stoltz, Sucks Blood has a wonderful focus that gets stoney, blurry and all bleary and sunsoaked yet the songs still feel so well crafted and the record so perfectly paced. The opening track finds Dwyer reconstructing his garage rock roots with a smokin' lo-fi burner that would make Roky Erickson proud. As the record moves on there is an intoxicating hazy moodiness that emanates so effortlessly from every track start to finish. We love how timeless this record sounds and feels. It's doesn't at all seem like a part of any current trend or scene. Instead it sounds like someone locked up in their room with a window half open as sun, clouds and wind mingle in the sky and songs grow and blossom organically. With no one to please but himself, you get the feeling that Dwyer was able to totally relax and make exactly the record he's been wanting to make for ages. We've already been listening to this in our headphones as we walk through the city, on those afternoons made for wandering aimlessly just to see where you might end up, and this is the perfect soundtrack for sure. Whether laying in the grass, or sitting on the porch, or staying in bed till late in the afternoon, these are the perfect sounds for being busy doing nothing. So totally nice!
These tapes are LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, each one hand numbered!
Another very affordable, but limited, 2-fer cassette from Thee Oh Sees, this time with both 2008's full band debut The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In, and 2009's Help (an AQ Record Of The Week!). Limited to 250 copies, act fast!!!
Here's our massive original reviews of those two records...
Master's Bedroom: The Oh Sees have changed a lot since they were the OCS. Back then, Oh Sees frontman John Dwyer had his Coachwhips, a wild sweat soaked, garage stomp party, furious and frenzied, throbbing and in-the-red, so OCS was the outlet for Dwyer to explore the other sides of his multiple musical personality. The debut OCS record (released on tUMULt) was two discs, one of mostly solo acoustic guitar, a super intimate bedroom folk, all dusty and crackly, warm and super intimate, bits of damaged Casio, warbly old vinyl, damaged FX, lovingly crafted into some sort of heartfelt lo-fi sonic loveletter. The other disc was more noisy, super abstract, blown out blasts of free jazz weirdness, drones and rumbles, howling feedback, white noise, pink noise, and every color in between. OCS 2, 3 and 4 followed a similar pattern, a sort of lonely lo-fi homebrewed indie folk, off kilter and melancholy, wistful, damaged and dreamy.
But with the dissolution of the Coachwhips, came a name change for OCS, now The Ohsees, or sometimes The Oh Sees, a change in sound, and a transformation into a full band.
While not as freaked out and furious as the Coachwhips, the Oh Sees new record sounds more like the long lost CW's than any of Dwyer's records since. Garage-y jangle, shuffling drums, the vocals distorted, the songs simple and stripped down, but the big difference is that here Dwyer splits the vocals with bandmate Brigid Dawson, the result is truly endearing harmonies, with Dwyer often the wailing counterpoint to Dawson's sweet angelic croon. And songs that sometimes sound like alien versions of that classic Phil Spector girl group sound. But at its heart, the sound is still fuzzy and buzzy and skeletal, groovy and garage rocky, wouldn't be hard to imagine this disc on In The Red, or see these guys on tour with the Dirtbombs or the Country Teasers or the Husbands. (Bonus points for having a song about aQ pal and local artist extraordinaire Maria Forde!)
Help: Listening to Help, it's almost impossible to hear anything but mere traces of the chaotic noise rock path John Dwyer followed to make it to Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS, and Ohsees), but it's that noisy past, and penchant for musical shit stirring, that informs the jangly garage pop on Help, and transforms the band's jangle and shuffle and pound into near perfect buzzy fuzzy catchy retro pop, and makes it easily the best Oh Sees record yet. And a definite contended for (garage) pop record of the year.
Most of us were introduced to Dwyer via his two piece noise rock costume rock combo Pink And Brown (after brief stints in some well known Providence outfits), but unlike most of the costumed joke bands at the time, P&B offered some serious songsmithery along with the unhinged live shows and audience baiting. A brief stint drumming for SF grindlords Burmese led directly into the band that brought Dwyer to worldwide attention, the Coachwhips. Arguably one of the best live bands around, the Coachwhips made up for what they lacked in actual songs with sweat and alcohol soaked performances, utter chaos, and sometimes literally, ultra destructive houseshows. Coachwhips shows were all about the energy, the vibe, jumping around, flailing wildly, getting wrecked and having a blast. Sometimes though, that energy was difficult to translate to home listening. Take away the sweaty throng and the deafening volume and, well why would you want to do that?
And so came the Oh Sees, originally called OCS, and a double cd release on Andee's tUMULt label a few years back, essentially a solo record, one disc of folky fluttery lo-fi twang flecked pop, another of corrosive textured noise experiments, which ended up being, for many of us, one of our favorite post Pink And Brown Dwyer documents. OCS transformed into The Oh Sees and became a real band, and seemed poised to follow in the sonic footsteps of the Coachwhips, stripped down garage rock, super lo-fi, lost of brittle high end, yelped distorted vocals, tribal drumming, but there was definitely something more, more refined, more catchy, more timeless sounding, something much more than garage rock, a sound that reminded us of sixties girl groups, of Phil Spector productions, raw and primal, but lush and expansive and catchy. But that catchy lush side of the Oh Sees remained hidden beneath squalls of tweeter abuse and fractured effects, a wall of fuzz and buzz more than an actual wall of sound. Until now.
Help finds the band making their first record for garage rock stalwarts In The Red, which is ironic as this is Thee Oh Sees' least typically garage rock record yet. Instead, the sound is total pop, plucked fresh from a time capsule buried in the sixties, the guitars jangle as much as crunch, lots of reverb, the vocals wreathed in a haze of delay, lots of female vox, the choruses are lush, the drums are still tribal, but much more measured, often quite spare, the arrangements though are anything but classic, sometimes getting super abstract, but never losing their catchiness, sometimes adding all sorts of extra distorted overload, but just as quickly slipping into something smooth and groovy. Minus the weird moments and the fucked up productions, some of these songs do really sound like they were just transported forward four decades.
"Meat Step Lively" starts off all Cramps-y, with a fuzzy grinding main riff, simple pounding rhythm, but adds some awesome female vocals and background 'ooooohs', some spidery lead guitars, and coolest of all breaks it down with about a minute to go into a swinging sixties smoke-y jazzy flute flecked groove. "The Turn Around" is a minute of blown out drum damage and fractured effects, but wrapped around a sing songy main riff, and some cool distorted and reverbed vox, in total Guided By Voices fashion, they truncate what could have been the jam of the record, and launch into "Can You See", which is all slithery and washed out, with angelic background vocals, shuffling drums, and a cool dreamy bridge, but the whole thing still manages to sound ominous and intense and weirdly sexy.
The record closes with "Peanut Butter Oven", which we first heard on the recent (and sadly now out of print) Awesome Vistas 12", and it's obvious why this was the single, it definitely is THE jam of the record, with it's simple stripped down jangle, workmanlike drum beat, and soaring minor key strings, and let's not forget the gorgeous harmony vocals draped over the singing strings and that irresistible main riff.
And so it goes, every track here is a gem, each one offers up something new, some twisted take on that classic sixties garage rock sound, but it's that sound revved up and filtered through Dwyer's gloriously cracked pop sensibilities, bathed in buzz and fuzz or stripped way down and left shimmery and crystalline, sometimes wrapped in HUGE hooks or allowed to simmer and slither, the catchiness subtle yet so irresistible, and unlike past efforts, even at its noisiest, the noise element seems more an organic part of the sound, and is often shaped into something barely recognizable as noisy.
We knew Dwyer and company had it in them, and now they've proven it, BIG TIME. Dying to see what they come up with next, if they could possibly one up this here disc, but hell, for now, Help has us way satisfied. And records like these are exactly why they invented that repeat button on your cd player. Folks with turntable will just have to get up and flip the record over and over and over, again and again and again.
WAY recommended.
