Lovely Tentacles
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The late talk-show host Tom Snyder - an incisive, idiosyncratic fellow - used to welcome viewers to his post-midnight chat-fests on NBC, and then CBS, by encouraging viewers to "fire up a color-tini and watch the pictures fly through the air." Well, I’ve got a variation on that one. I recommend that you fire up a CD or audio file of Hello, Avalanche - the third album by the American electro-pop-rock ensemble The Octopus Project – and listen to the sound-pictures fly through your brain.
As a confirmed devotee of electronic music, the synthesizer experimentations of Wendy Carlos and Larry “Synergy†Fast, the jazz/rock/world-music fusion of Weather Report, the more soulful studio reveries of Zero 7, and the ambient soundscapes of Brian Eno, I suppose I’m the target audience for The Octopus Project. But I’ll bet that there are a lot of unsuspecting listeners out there who would be swept up by the stirring sonic play of this eclectic, flexible quartet that was spawned a few years ago in the college town/artists' colony of Austin, Texas. And who knows who might freak with delight to hear Yvonne Lambert, one of the Project, fire up her theremin - the strange vibratory stick that generates otherworldly musical tones when a hand comes in close proximity?Considering the primarily instrumental thrust of the recording and the use of synths, a question might arise: Can machines be soulful? The answer is yes, in the right hands. And the band members aren’t just twisting dials and pushing buttons and programming: Josh Lambert plays guitar, bass, and keyboards, as does Ryan Figg; Toto Miranda switches between drums, guitar, bass; and Lambert handles keyboards, glockenspiel, and guitar in addition to samplers and the theremin.That theremin sound - which can, among other things, evoke the warble of an alien chanteuse in some intergalactic nightclub or prayer meeting - carries along one of my favorite tracks on the album, “I Saw the Bright Shinies.†There’s a beautiful parry and thrust with the sequenced melodies and beats and that unique non-human vocal chorus, courtesy of the theremin, that sounds like the trees in the wind singing in an old Walt Disney / Silly Symphonies cartoon.The opening cut, “Snow Tip Cap Mountain,†is a stately processional suggesting that the titular mountain is located on Mars and the Martian dawn is breaking. “Truck†is a whole ‘nother thing, a pounding, raving, near-hysterical-but-always-controlled jam-up of punk and prog-rock, while “Bees Bein' Strugglin’†transmutes into a grand, robust, stadium-ready rock anthem.Strange polyrhythmic excursions of all types follow, including the querulous beep, buzz and pluck of “Black Blizzard/Red Umbrella†which pings into bouncy jungle-y machine beats and melodic washes that echo Joe Zawinul's mix of classical and Third World composition in Weather Report. On “Upmann,†a gentle acoustic guitar intro in an odd time signature is turned inside out by another thundering drum beat that is increasingly buried under swatches of sonorous melody lines. The ever-layering melodies surge and soften, attack and decay. “Mmaj†- its hip-hopping break-dance rhythm and splatter of keyboards overtaken by a house-music kick-drum - owes more than a little to Kraftwerk’s innovative electro-shock tactics. If the robots were having a rave...Screaming guitars make deep incursions on “Ghost Moves,†while the cascading guitar chords, keyboard fills and off-kilter time signature of “Vanishing Lessons†could be the dreamy score to an M.C. Escher drawing. Atmospheres dissolve, as drums tattoo; guitars twang; keyboards dart and weave. And so on, ending with the brief, endearing “Queen,†which features real (though electronically treated) vocals and lyrics.Hello, Avalanche is the sort of album that wraps its tendrils around your cerebral cortex and carries you away. And I mean that in the best possible way.Lend your ears (and brain) to “Black Blizzard/Red Umbrellaâ€:
As a confirmed devotee of electronic music, the synthesizer experimentations of Wendy Carlos and Larry “Synergy†Fast, the jazz/rock/world-music fusion of Weather Report, the more soulful studio reveries of Zero 7, and the ambient soundscapes of Brian Eno, I suppose I’m the target audience for The Octopus Project. But I’ll bet that there are a lot of unsuspecting listeners out there who would be swept up by the stirring sonic play of this eclectic, flexible quartet that was spawned a few years ago in the college town/artists' colony of Austin, Texas. And who knows who might freak with delight to hear Yvonne Lambert, one of the Project, fire up her theremin - the strange vibratory stick that generates otherworldly musical tones when a hand comes in close proximity?Considering the primarily instrumental thrust of the recording and the use of synths, a question might arise: Can machines be soulful? The answer is yes, in the right hands. And the band members aren’t just twisting dials and pushing buttons and programming: Josh Lambert plays guitar, bass, and keyboards, as does Ryan Figg; Toto Miranda switches between drums, guitar, bass; and Lambert handles keyboards, glockenspiel, and guitar in addition to samplers and the theremin.That theremin sound - which can, among other things, evoke the warble of an alien chanteuse in some intergalactic nightclub or prayer meeting - carries along one of my favorite tracks on the album, “I Saw the Bright Shinies.†There’s a beautiful parry and thrust with the sequenced melodies and beats and that unique non-human vocal chorus, courtesy of the theremin, that sounds like the trees in the wind singing in an old Walt Disney / Silly Symphonies cartoon.The opening cut, “Snow Tip Cap Mountain,†is a stately processional suggesting that the titular mountain is located on Mars and the Martian dawn is breaking. “Truck†is a whole ‘nother thing, a pounding, raving, near-hysterical-but-always-controlled jam-up of punk and prog-rock, while “Bees Bein' Strugglin’†transmutes into a grand, robust, stadium-ready rock anthem.Strange polyrhythmic excursions of all types follow, including the querulous beep, buzz and pluck of “Black Blizzard/Red Umbrella†which pings into bouncy jungle-y machine beats and melodic washes that echo Joe Zawinul's mix of classical and Third World composition in Weather Report. On “Upmann,†a gentle acoustic guitar intro in an odd time signature is turned inside out by another thundering drum beat that is increasingly buried under swatches of sonorous melody lines. The ever-layering melodies surge and soften, attack and decay. “Mmaj†- its hip-hopping break-dance rhythm and splatter of keyboards overtaken by a house-music kick-drum - owes more than a little to Kraftwerk’s innovative electro-shock tactics. If the robots were having a rave...Screaming guitars make deep incursions on “Ghost Moves,†while the cascading guitar chords, keyboard fills and off-kilter time signature of “Vanishing Lessons†could be the dreamy score to an M.C. Escher drawing. Atmospheres dissolve, as drums tattoo; guitars twang; keyboards dart and weave. And so on, ending with the brief, endearing “Queen,†which features real (though electronically treated) vocals and lyrics.Hello, Avalanche is the sort of album that wraps its tendrils around your cerebral cortex and carries you away. And I mean that in the best possible way.Lend your ears (and brain) to “Black Blizzard/Red Umbrellaâ€:
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