[engl] It is easy to forget (especially amidst the ringing of ears and aching of muscles after your typical Oh Sees show) that initially, OCS was a rather hushed affair. After the minimalistic brutality of Coachwhips, OCS was a diametric opposite corner of John’s musical world, quiet to the point of whispered in the wind, buffeted by the airy whirr of singing saw, soft and strange. Those early records especially had a rather contraband hush about them, as if the party has gone on all night and continues into the morning but everyone’s raspy from talking too much and gradually agrees to whisper and pantomime as they watch the sun come up over the hills. Since then of course, things got gradually louder, faster, crazier...the band evolved since then into the Oh Sees everyone knows. For the 20th Oh Sees release, 100th Castle Face title, and 20th year doing it, John re-examines the quieter roots of it all in particularly baroque and homesteadly fashion. Memory of a Cut Off Head was co-written with longtime collaborator and vocal counterpoint Brigid Dawson, recorded in total in John’s own Stu Stu Studio, and it’s lush, sumptuous in texture, but satisfyingly retains the gentle grace of the early stuff. There’s beautifully executed strings throughout, courtesy of Heather Lockie’s fine arrangements, horn arrangements courtesy of Mikal Cronin, and they even brought back the old saw - Patrick Mullins, that is - on saw and electronics. A return and a refinement of old forms, a few solemn meditations on life lived at high velocity, perhaps a respite from it…a softer side of JPD and distinguished company.

[engl] Hey there, human kids, Lift your face out of the feed trough and pluck that feculence from your ears. Hark! A sonar blip from beneath the pile of bodies. Boop, blip ughhh…. People churning like a boiling swamp. Man, this din is nauseating. The screen flickers for the first time this year with a transmission from two months in the future: “the internet has deemed guitar music dead and you are free to do whatever the fuck you like ….long live the new flesh!” This album is Soundcloud hip-hop reversed, a far flung nemesis of contemporary country and flaccid algorithmic pop-barf. No songs about money or love are floating in the ether. Just memories, echoes, foggy blurs Blip-blop goes the scope Heavy funk Dystopia-punk canons Lonnnnng jams Bloated solos dribbling down your caved-in chest. Human cattle like a beef avalanche, right on your burned out face hole. Spider legs fuzz crawling in your brain. Lots of curse words for your mom. You’ve gotten the over-population blues, so let’s have some art for art’s sake. What else are you gonna do? Stare at the sky? Please… 50 carbon copies of you look back at you as you walk the streets. Take a breath, you’re going to need it. Take drugs, you’re going to need those just to stand in line at the air and water reclamation center soon enough. There’s no fruit, buddy. You’re at the bleak-peak. They will squeeze you till you’re all squeezed out. For fans of fried prog burn out, squished old-school drool, double drums, lead weight bass, wizard keys (now with poison), old-ass guitar and horrible words with daft meanings. If you don’t like it then don’t listen, bub. Back to the comments section with you! Easy Over and out

[engl] The newly shorn Oh Sees waste no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with the mighty ORC, and wouldn’t ya know it, they’ve clawed even farther up the ghastly peak last year’s A Weird Exits stormed so satisfyingly. The band is in tour-greased, anvil on a balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining with equal dashes of abandon and menace on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect from, ahem, Oh Sees. Fresh blood Paul Quattrone joins Dan Rincon to form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet footing shifting ground to pinion Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. The tunes veer towards the violence of their live shows, with a few tasty swerves into other lanes…heavy to lush, groovy to stately…throughout it remains sinister in its swaggering skulk, manic in its fuzz-fried fugues…they hit all the sweet spots the heads foggily remember, and there’s plenty to sweat over if you just hopped into the sauna. Ew. More evil….more complex…more narcotic…more screech….more roar….more whisper…there’s even more Brigid.

[engl] Crack the coffers, Oh Sees have spawned another frothy LP of head-destroying psych epics to grok and rock out to. You’ll notice the fresh dollop of organ and keyboard prowess courtesy of "Memory of a Cut Off Head” alum and noted key-stabber Tom Dolas...the Quattrone/Rincon drum-corps polyrhythmic pulse continues to astound and pound in equal measure, buttressed by the nimble fingered bottom end of Sir Tim Hellman the Brave and the shred-heaven fret frying of John Dwyer, whilst Lady Brigid Dawson again graces the wax with her harmonic gifts. Aside from the familiar psych-scorch familiar to soggy pit denizens the world over, there’s a fresh heavy-prog vibe that fits like a worn-in jean jacket comfortably among hairpin metal turns and the familiar but no less horns-worthy guitar fireworks Dwyer’s made his calling card. Perhaps the most notable thing about Smote Reverser is the artistic restlessness underpinning its flights of fancy. Dwyer refuses to repeat himself and for someone with such a hectic release schedule, that stretching of aesthetic borders and omnivorous appetite seems all the more superhuman. Hope you’re hungry as these platters are piled high.

[engl] "The space-age songsmiths of Once & Future Band have been ting-tinging away on the truly heavy anvil of hominid perspective and emotion again to bring you this singing scape of songs. Annealing for over a year now, until it was cool enough to hold in your ears, nested in the pinnae, the time has finally come. Dew drops pop and hiss as they settle on the gliding guitarmonies. Once & Future Band have outdone themselves this time around, in my opinion. If songs could stop heated exchanges by mere presence, these are the ones, and more needed than ever. As I tuned in to each new transmission, each step closer to this perfect platter, I had to stop and do nothing else, and merely absorb how wonderful this album is. Each tune exists in the company it was born to live with. There are haunting chorale escorts here...long trains of room warmth...the belting of the machine heart...lofty guitar and bass melange...and just beautifully laid to magnetic tape with a sure hand by the throbbing brains that are Once & Future Band for fans of Roy Wood, Idle Race, ELO, Roxy Music, Head Hunters, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, The Lord Bowie, The Band, and the soundtrack from every movie that ever pierced your cold, cold heart” - John Dwyer

[engl] In the vapor trail of “How Does It Make You Feel” you can smell the burnt ozone of a seventies-full-orchestra-nebula-pop-odyssey, the flakes floating down and landing on you like snow and giving you the grave-chills…the ash of a masterpiece pop song. Once and Future Band: this incredibly accomplished cabal of total prog wizards has circled the earth, but then, these are the accomplished gentlemen of many former pursuits (the formidable Drunk Horse among them) and all of them comets themselves. The very mid 70s vibe at work here surpasses pastiche, and crests that lovely anachronistic conceptual peak: a fully realized and meticulously arranged psych record, meant to be listened to from top to bottom, with the lights down low and in a comfy chair perhaps, or while gazing out the window of your life pod. A Dark Side of the Moon feel, with shades of early Yes’s technicality, a dash of Steely Dan’s vocal prowess and effortless sheen, and some seriously outsized hooks that call to mind the mighty ELO, Le Orme and yes, even the unsinkable Queen powered on Brian May’s tape echo jet fuel and sequined power cells…this is a head record in the classic sense but we swear to The Dark One that you will be trapped and infected by the pop-parasite. That it is largely self-produced (with tracking/engineering on three of the songs by Phil Manley at El Studio) makes it all the more jaw dropping. We didn’t realize how much we needed Once and Future Band in our life, but now that they’re here we can’t get them out of our brains or off of our stereo. Making prog cool again, again, and then slightly more complicatedly, again.

[engl] Releasedate 12.08.2022! Brain stem cracking scum-punk recorded tersely in the basement of my home. After a notoriously frustrating eon the knee-jerk song path was aggressive and hooky. This is an homage to the punk bands we grew up on. The weirdos and art freaks that piqued our interests and pointed us on the trail head to here/now. Bad times make for strong music is something I agree with. I would say that is evident by the past few years of output from the underground. Transmissions have been all over the map. scanning… searching… sweeping out in the darkness looking for a foot hold. A Foul From represents some of our most savage & primal instincts. Fight or flight. And the importance of a sense of humor in the darkest hour. Nothing wrong with keeping it snappy in the meantime. For fans of Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Screamers, Abwarts, Stooges and all things aggressively tilted towards your face. You can lean back but don’t flinch…it’s a brief foray into the exhausting pogo pit so stiffen your back and jerk with your knees.

[engl] In the swirling & undulant warm mud of jettisoned reels of magnetic tape, blurps up the fog of reinvention. Every night I would parley with my pilots and run and rerun the recordings. Right up until the moment sleep slips its veil over eyes and ears and you drift back without a sound. Protean Threat dream haze becomes Panther Rotate in the other dimension. A companion LP of remixes, field recordings, and sonic experiments using all sounds generated by the hum and crackle of the desert farm.

[engl] POW! is rechromed and ready to soundtrack your dystopian near future. Harsh neon synths keep battle with zipline guitars for space above a dark and teeming cityscape. Your guide is always in the shadows, you can’t make out his face but you hear his crazed diatribe as he wards off all affronts. The songs are at their core razor sharp punk, but are fleshed out with inventive and catchy synth work - and the floating bits of atmospheric expansion between tracks only serve to heighten the paranoid atmosphere. These tunes have a sci-fi depth, a moody bite, and a startling clarity sharpened to a point by the wizard hand of Chris Woodhouse, who helmed the magnetization. Recommended listening for future-punk teens and grown adults alike.

[engl] Just when we thought we knew what to expect from POW! they surprise us with a vigorous and rabid LPs worth of moody cybernetic punk that’s frankly their best yet. Their 4th is oil-dipped in a rainbowed slick of dread, yet the songs are buoyed by tight tunes that seem to have a lot of fun among the ruins of the future, dare I say with an eye to a less gloomy horizon? Melissa Blue’s sharp elbowed synths jostle with Byron Blum’s zap gun guitar in an ominous fog of oscillations, and yet somehow my toe is a-tapping. POW! got darker and more catchy at the same time, for which some credit is due to the excellent drumming of Cameron Allen and the fantastically future savvy production by Byron Blum & Tomas Dolas. Lots of sticky punk heart resin-layered in a futuristic-scanning bionic bop. For fans of Solid Space, Tubeway Army, The Units, The Screamers, and glittery black nail polish.

[engl] “Very pleased to be working with these boys… I first saw them ages ago at the Sattelite and they were cake-takers that night…now, they are stronger and weirder than ever. I couldn’t believe this new batch of tunes and their bananas-energy live show and, their fans are hard-core heads, just a soup of dance and mouths agog brutal, fractured, pogoing beats played by Pachy, also the singer, belching out vocal smoke rings in the laser light above the din they are flat out commands, militaristic in their delivery and yet catchy, like you like em Marcos, an extro-sensual bassist who climbs inside of your mind-clothes while grinding out aggressively greasy throbs and pulls and Paco, the keyboardist who at times plays reeling wailing lines that could be mistaken for a number of other instruments…and the hair on this dude I have a hard time remembering how nice his face is offstage, all you can see is a whip wigging out they are captivating, they are odd, they make strange and interesting choices…futuristic and yet drawn from the same sonic sludge that all mankind derives from they live and breathe early Los Angeles punk vibes while still innovating at every turn there is electricity in this sound they simply rule and what a pleasure to hear the album doesn’t stray far from what makes them just melt it in person recorded perfectly to harness the animal on a nice inanimate slab of plastic you can take home for fans of Screamers, Suicide, Chrome, and yes, a hint of a down unda Birthday Party”

[engl] Last year’s Pools having taken up a sizable chunk of our cold dark hearts, we were delighted to hear that LA post-industrial trio Prettiest Eyes have a new gang of crowd-stirrers. None too early, either; once you’ve become accustomed to their clanging synthetic orbit, it’s hard to find other tunes that truly scratch the same itch. Volume 3 bursts at the seams with chrome-dipped timbres and surprise sharp edges, alien klaxon-calls and wailing dissonance offsetting the ziplock’d grease of their insistent drum and bass grooves. Prettiest Eyes are one of the most exciting live bands going on right now, and Volume 3 catches them in fine fettle.

[engl] 9 new ones from Chicago's psychotic sons - screech on blast, phasers on stun, razors out and over all too quick. Comes with a download code. Colored vinyl copies come with a flexi of "Woke Up Applauding". All LPs come with a digital download card.

[engl] Announcing a totally far out split LP from unexpected corners - fave Hoosier via SF tripper transplants Burnt Ones sweet-talked the one and only Space Lady into a split, and the results are magical. In her inimitable style she sparkles through "Across The Universe", "Starman", a brand-new original called “The Next Right Thing", and an achingly elegaic "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". Beautiful stuff and wonderful additions to her lovely repertoire. For their half Burnt Ones have continued to dial in and mellow down their sound, creating a warm cocoon for two kaliedoscopic creepers, peaking just a little with a floweringly spaced out version of the Space Lady's greatest hit, "Synthesize Me” and they close it with another druggy lullabye. Sounds like my idea of a great night in…

[engl] “Often when music is constructed with synths and other electronically generated sound makers, their level of exactitude and control is such that the vocalist will either wittingly or otherwise seek to emulate the relative no bloodedness of the soundscape. This is often done to great effect, think Kraftwerk. But what if there was a unit whose music was synth-generated but the vocals were coming from an analog rockin’ attitude? If done well, it’s a case of two great tastes that taste great together, and this is what I think about when I think about System Exclusive. This multi genre/time period collision is like a car accident where all parties walk away not only unscathed but sure they had a great time, like two different recording sessions sharing the same space and making it work. Ari Blaisdell (previously of Lower Self, The Beat Offs)’s vocals co-exist excellently amidst the driving beats and synth waves and her guitar further helps to jailbreak the tunes from the often sterile entrapments that synths provide. Matt Jones (previously of Male Gaze, Blasted Canyons, and continuing Castle Face behind-the-scenesman)’s smart use of live drums bring great juxtaposition against the machines. Ari’s irony-free sincere delivery is the perfect closer on this very cool record, recorded ably by Enrique Tena Padilla (Osees, Wand, Beach House) in their backyard studio mid-pandemic and adorned with original artwork by Miles Wintner (L.A. Takedown, Mr. Elevator, Devon Williams). If you don’t get this slab of goodness, well, that act of non-compliance will confirm you as the pain-in-the-ass that many have described you to be in great detail during Zoom chats. How dare they! Prove them wrong! Reduce their snark to mere pseudo-intellectual piffle! Your lifeline arrives in March. Grab it.” - Henry Rollins

[engl] "Drop" was recorded in a banana ripening warehouse (no joke) with hair-farming studio warlock Chris Woodhouse playing drums and graced with the presence of talented gurus Mikal Cronin, Greer McGettrick, and Casafis adding horns and vocals. The result pushes the familiar polarities of the group farther outward than ever before…opener "Penetrating Eye" might be the heaviest Oh Sees song yet, "Transparent World" and "Put Some Reverb On My Brother" foam with seasick fuzz, and yet the ballads, like the harpsichorded "King's Nose" and the lush and stately closer "The Lens", extend their oeuvre into mellotronic, far-out pop with delicacy and grace. This schizophrenia heralds the man and the band into an unseen future in classic Dwyer fashion - with restless energy harnessed into exquisitely crafted jams, with an emphasis on the pensive and the paranoid in turns. Featuring artwork by Jonny Negron. All vinyl includes a handsome gatefold lyric sheet insert.

[engl] A pinnacle in Thee Oh Sees' catalog, featuring the louder, grungier, synth-melty sound they've bludgeoned audiences around the world with. Featuring terrifying artwork from Matt Brinkman and John Dwyer. Vinyl LP comes with a download card.

[engl] Perched in the belfry of The Chapel we caught Thee mighty Oh Sees, alive and in their natural element, with our shutters aflutter and our tapes on a roll. After a short incubation period the beast has reached full maturity and it is hideous. Over three nights they pummeled, and we’ve culled some great photographs, a wicked recording, and even a little live video action that we’re very excited to share with you. Presented to you on two discs, in a handsome double gatefold LP, with bonus live video directed by Brian Lee Hughes, edited by Casey Anderson and filmed by their crew of merry gentlemen on an included DVD, we are happy to announce our first double LP of the “Live in San Francisco” series. Finally you depraved Oh Sees freaks have something to take home with you when you lose your shoes and your girlfriend at the show. Put it on at home and pretend to wait in line for the bathroom and it’s like you’re really there. The thrash, the throb, the mob is all present and pushed to the front. Dual drummers synced in each ear, Tim Hellman rounding out the bottom and Castle Face’s own John Dwyer lasering young brains off and fomenting the crowd to a froth up front on guitar - it’s a great band, in a great room, with a great crowd and it’s cooked to perfection…take a little bit of it with you this time.

[engl] Here we have nine muscular tunes primed to pummel to. Last year’s Drop was more schizophrenic, ranging from heavy to whimsical and back - Mutilator Defeated At Last has more in common with the monolithic hugeness of Floating Coffin - with only two slight reprieves in heaviness this is a record made to be played loudly and that demands bodily sacrifice inherently. Despite the plutonium heavy feel, Thee Oh Sees continue to be omnivorous - synths and acoustic guitars expertly wind their way throughout like veins of gold through granite - any and all that stands in its way will be devoured and assimilated.

[engl] From the same misty mountain top tape spool as August’s “A Weird Exits”, Thee Oh Sees bring us a companion LP titled “An Odd Entrances". Delving more towards the contemplative side than the face-skinning aspects of "A Weird Exits", "An Odd Entrances" is a cosmic exercise en plein aire with Dwyer and co double drum shuffling, lounging with cellos, following a flute around the groove, and spooling a few Grimm-dark lullabies along the way. Lurking in the grass are a snake or two, like the celestial facing instrumental buzz of Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 1…but for the most part this is a relatively hushed affair, a morning rather than evening listen perhaps. Those that are quick on the uptake will find a flexi with a bonus song on it in the colored vinyl, too. The band plans on donating half of their profits from the first pressing to Elizabeth House, a local charity here in Pasadena that specifically helps homeless women with children from the San Gabriel Valley get back on their feet.

[engl] One-offs, covers, and rarities from 2011-2013 by Thee Oh Sees collected in one place for your fancies. The brightest most metallic chrome printing available to man, with three color original artwork by Shalo P.

[engl] All the Oh Sees singles and B sides (through 2011) in one place! Includes Tidal Wave (featured on TV's gnarly Breaking Bad)