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Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Thee Oh Sees - (2016) A Weird Exits

 Castle Face ‎– 080
Emerging from the distant light we have a new double LP from our own John Dwyer's Thee Oh Sees. The first studio recordings to capture the muscular rhythm section of double drummers Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon with ringer bassist Tim Hellman cracking spines, the groove and bludgeon we've come to expect from the live shows is captured seamlessly here - they go from zero to head-splitter from the get-go and on the rare occasions they do let up on the gas a bit, we're treated to some locked-in hypnotizers, too. The guitar sounds more colossal and ethereal at the same time, riding roughshod over the vacuum sealed rhythm section, spiraling skywards, and diving into the emerald depths so quick your guts tingle. Synths, strings and smoke soaked things crawl behind the scenes to make an extra far-out party platter. Served on 45 rpm plates for most excellent listening quality. With amazing visuals and a side D etching by air-brush-van-art maestro Robert Beatty…and packed in vape-proof goat skin. It’s a beast and it can be yours should you choose come August 12th.....come on now.

Oh Sees - (2018) Smote Reverser

 Castle Face ‎– 110
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.

Oh Sees - (2017) Orc

Castle Face ‎– 093
John Dwyer has once again changed the name of his long-running band that has been variously known as Thee Oh Sees, OCS, and more. They are now Oh Sees. Along with the new name, Oh Sees have also announced a new record called Orc; it’s out August 25 via Dwyer’s Castle Face Records. The album follows Thee Oh Sees’ pair of 2016 releases, A Weird Exits and An Odd Entrances, as well as Bunker Funk—Dwyer’s 2017 LP as Damaged Bug. Below, listen to a new Oh Sees song, “The Static God,” and scroll down for the Orc tracklist, artwork, and Oh Sees’ upcoming tour dates.

Oh Sees - (2017) Memory of a Cut Off Head 2x12''

 Castle Face ‎– 100
Just days after Thee Oh Sees released their first album under their new moniker, Oh Sees, frontman John Dwyer announced his group’s second name change of the summer. They’re back to being just OCS, as they were known when hardly anybody was listening, and unlike their last rebrand, this one marks a genuine change of course. Pivoting away from the numbing garage rock pummel of their recent albums, which had a two-drummer lineup, their upcoming record, Memory of a Cut Off Head, returns Dwyer and company to the mellow, quilted folk of their earliest releases.
On the album’s opening, title track, Dwyer sounds every bit as at ease as he did over the wild Richter-scale energy of his recent records. It helps that his former accompanist Brigid Dawson has rejoined him as a duet partner. She’s a calming presence; her friendly voice accentuates the sweetness of this folk song. With its prim, string-cushioned arrangement and callbacks to the English folk of the 1960s, “Memory of a Cut Off Head” is lusher and lovelier than anything from the last incarnation of Oh Sees, almost uncannily graceful. Yet Dwyer can’t resist a little mischief: As if to keep his string section on its toes, he juices the chorus with a rapid tempo spike, and for a few moments, the orderly tune threatens to spin off its rails. It’s a prankster’s power play—a reminder that Dwyer created this gorgeous little tableau, and he can destroy it just as easily.

Oh Sees - (2019) Face Stabber CD

Castle Face ‎– 116

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

Oh Sees - (2017) Dead Medic 12''

 Castle Face ‎– 099
THIS 12" SINGLE WAS CULLED FROM SOME LONGER JAMS DURING THE ORC SESSIONS (ONE OF WHICH IS A COVER OF A MOST EXCELLENT OLD SCHOOL SWEDISH BAND CALLED "TRÄD GRÄS OCH STENAR") AND WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE THRU OUR WEBSITE.
THIS ONE IS FOR OUR FANS, ITS A YEAR END HOLIDAY CELEBRATION SLAB OF WAX MEANT TO PUT AWAY OUR OLD 2017 EGO AND PUSH FORWARD INTO 2018, A YEAR WHERE WE ALL DO BETTER BY OURSELVES, BY OTHERS AND BY THE WORLD.
ITS BEEN A HEAVY ONE, NO DOUBT, BUT THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE AND STRENGTH. SO SIT BACK AND FEAR NOT, YOU WON'T HAVE TO GET UP AGAIN TO FLIP IT FOR LIKE...11 MINUTES.
TAKE A BREATH AND LOOK FORWARD.

OCS - (2018) Live In San Francisco 2xLP

Rock Is Hell Records ‎– 079

Recorded at The Chapel, San Francisco, CA in December 2017.
A1 Memory Of A Cut Off Head
A2 Cannibal Planet
A3 Remote Viewer
A4 The Baron Sleeps And Dreams
B1 On & On Corridor
B2 Neighbor To None
B3 The Fool
B4 The Chopping Block
C1 Time Tuner
C2 Lift A Finger
C3 Dreadful Heart
C4 Iceberg
D Block Of Ice

Nurse With Wound - (2018) Changez Les Blockeurs LP

 United Dirter ‎– 138 
Nurse With Wound rework The New Blocakders rare AF 1982 début, ‘Changez Les Blockeurs’ in a mechanically reclaimed reflux of the OG, as gruesome as McNuggets, and just as tasty.

For the uninitiated (or sensible-minded) listeners who are unfamiliar with The New Blockaders: they’re one of the cheeriest acts to ever emerge from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; a pair of siblings responsible for some of post-industrial/noise and avant-garde music’s greatest oddities, ranging from a severe collab with an early iteration of Coil, to pioneering cut-up recordings with Mixed Band Philanthropist, and even later recording for Prurient’s Hospital Productions. They’re basically certified noise music heroes (anti-heroes?).

As ever, NWW’as Steven Stapelton was way ahead of the curve in 1982, and the first person to pick up TNB’s début LP, which he subsequently distributed via United Dairies. 36 years later, he’s returned to that slab, seemingly with a hatchet and some steam-powered Victorian loom, to extract its guts and weave them into a sound which physically lives up the record’s title; Changez Les Blockeurs.

Across two sides, he hacks, splices and hacks up the OG in a tirade of frayed rhythmic complexity and decimated racket, at times sounding like a Saturday afternoon’s worth of striped geordies fed into a massive sausage grinder.

As grim as your life.

Obsidian Needles - (2018) Coronal Mass Ejection CS

No Rent Records ‎– 091

Skin Graft - (2019) Condemned CS

No Rent Records ‎– 095  FLAC

Aaron Dilloway & John Wiese - (2019) Sniper Counter Sniper CD

Hanson Records ‎– 275  FLAC

Jeph Jerman - (2019) Arcane Facture CD

White Centipede Noise ‎– 038  FLAC

SIXES - (2006) Cursed Beast CD

 Troniks ‎/ Enterruption ‎– none  FLAC

VA - (2019) The Silent Continuity Of All Existence With Which The Victim Is Now One CD

Prose Nagge ‎– none  FLAC
 Tracklist:
1     –Hymenal Opening     Huffy Stalker    
2     –Unexamine     Indiscriminate Attack On The General Public    
3     –Wince     Superficial Criminality    
4     –Heat Signature     Flashbang Tossed Inside Cockpit    
5     –Gazourmah     Guard Dog Of The Stash Spot    
6     –Thot Gor     Heretics Mouth    
7     –Mania     Experience And Management Of Chaos    
8     –Body Carve     Firepoker    
9     –Kiran Arora     Slaking A Thirst    
10     –Presage      Leather Beacon    
11     –Shredded Nerve     Twist Of Fate    
12     –Heinz Hopf     Råkurr I Brunns    
13     –Kakerlak     Intermittent Continuity    
14     –Phocomelus     Mean Drunk

Sharpwaist - (2008) Poison Harbor / Trailers Flooded In The Wake Of A Hurricane 2xCS

Razors And Medicine ‎– 013  FLAC

Hands Rendered Useless - (2009) Deathbed Visions 2xCS

City Mortuary ‎– 00I  FLAC

Mutant Ape - (2012) Archive 01 3xCS

Turgid Animal ‎– none  FLAC
Part One / Two / Three / Four