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Chocolate Weasel
DJ Cam
DJ Method One
DJ Stratus
DJ 3D
Dwindle
Ed Rush
Electronica
Frank Lloyd Wright's California
Ganger
Gapeseed
Her Space Holiday
Holiday Flyer
ICU
Jungle Defined
Kim Salmon
King Rhythm
Laika
Latin Playboys
Lounge Lizards
Mark Robinson
Mixtapes
Monochrome
Most Secret Method
Music Appreciation 101
Pressure Drop
Terrastock II
Third Eye Foundation

O’Brien, Justin Desert Progressive Volume 1 CS
Like a sci-fi quadraped lumbering across the desert, P.A.s quake with Justin’s monstrous turntable-n-mixer dialect. Dedicated to the dynamic New Mexico desert party scene, Mr. O’Brien’s Desert Progressive set magnifies counts of four on labels like Choo Choo, Hooj Choons, Planetary Conciousness and Sunkissed. Progressive house and acidic trance lights up the morning sky as dust clouds, tumbleweeds and reptiles scurry around the bassbins. Justin’s set mimics the desert landscape -- his builds are like liquid sand dunes that relocate as the winds change direction, while the set’s drops mimic the quarry-like rock face canyons uncovered by the same intense winds that whirl the kids about under starlit skies. (Contact: 505-332-0989, 505-235-8717, DjJustinO@aol.com)

Odd Numbers The Trials and Tribulations of CD
Capturing the essence of 60s garage rock sounding purely pop (as opposed to what “garage” connotes today), the Odd Numbers trio plays 3-chord with conviction. While the pop-punk-isms fade, the dozen tracks recall Chisel’s affection for the Jam while retaining their contemporary “punk” ethos. As memorable as a Saturday afternoon rollercoaster ride. (Coldfront POB 8345 Berkeley, CA 94707, coldfrontrecords.com) – Keith York

Oh Holy Fools The Music Of Son, Ambulance and Bright Eyes CD
Alternating track IDs, the songs (8 in all) of Son, Ambulance and Bright Eyes are woven together for the listener’s benefit (rather than segregating each band’s songs 4- and 4- away from one another. These sounds of a solid kinship in voice and vision are as restful as the distant sounds of gurgling stream waters while lyrically they mine the wells your tear ducts resembled last time someone close to you passed away. Keys and guitars are the modus-operandi, while both Son, Ambulance and Bright Eyes make the notes and tones seem effortless for us, the great unwashed. While Son, Ambulance freely associates with a C86 twist on Momus and Tuesday Weld, Conor Oberst & Co. still remind me of less-nasal Dylan songs of yesteryear. Wonderful. (Saddle Creek POB 8554 Omaha, NE 68108, info@saddlecreek.com) – Keith York

Oleysyck, Robert “The Feel Sessions.001” CS
Recorded live at Grasshopper Studios only a few weeks back, this hundred minute workout is something to behold. Molasses-thick bass, 4/4 kicks ‘n’ snares and the sampleadelic offerings from the cream of the trance & prog-house crop come together under the deft guidance of this Las Vegas DJ. Side Two blows doors on Side One as the acid rinse takes hold of deep kids and whirls ‘em about like a blender mixin’ up a milkshake. (contact: 702-792-0655 or robo@wizard.com)

Olive Flying 7”
This single gave me an odd feeling, one of an empathetic “producer type” pleading for a better recording and mastering job and another feeling that the a-side should go untouched. I don’t care for the b-side “Weird Facial Hair Boy.” “Flying” exhibits a girl-pop sound akin to Red Dye No.5 - who unashamedly said their influences were Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver and the like. Olive are in this same camp of swirling post- “One Last Kiss...” guitars and melancholy female vocals stirring like sugar and cream in a hot cup of French roast. (Framed! PO Box 49961 Austin, TX 78765)

OLO The OLorizedcOLOralbum CD
Melting together the Crayola crayons of Neu!, La Dusseldorf, and Silver Apples with present-day contemporaries Stereolab & Laika, the construction-paper canvas of the public school classroom becomes a work of art even skeptical critics can admire. Though OLOrized is only comprised of five pieces of music, each predetermined line drawing fails to keep these four young men from coloring outside the lines. If anyone thought playing with matches as a youngster wouldn't yield much more than teen pyromaniacs, OLO is proof positive. Now if I could only figure out how to post this on my refrigerator door. (AIP 1625 Oakwood Drive San Mateo, CA 94403) – Keith York

Omnibot ?Syntax Error 12”
Six tracks of recorded analog drum machine firestorms. Gabba or “Gabber” as the VC folks dub it, typically displays a barrage of ultra-fast kick drums and snares, but Omnibot use old-school technology to make their statement. “?Syntax Error” is a sure-fire pleaser, with its crazed 303 break where the kick drum boldly expresses itself amongst the smaller, more feeble quickstep bleeps and blips. Tracks like “Execute and “Discontinuity Jerk” are fairly uni-dimensional drum assaults with requisite dancing distorted synth lines dodging and weaving the engineer’s final mixdown. While boldly embracing a mechano-philosophy, Omnibot’s sound lulled me into a daydream of David Lynch’s Eraserhead factory rhythms and TV dramas UFO and Space 1999. The sci-fi genre usage of expansive walls of computer light boards and a cacophony of whirring and buzzing prior to data output, Omnibot bring their own flavor to the scene. Stark, post-Bladerunner fantasies in dank, dark minds with antiquated drum machines in their possession. Omnibot = analog-gabba. (Vinyl Communications PO Box 8623 Chula Vista, CA 91912)

1.8.7. When Worlds Collide CD
Reaching personal bests, athletes are enveloped in a drug-like state of success marked by stomping past goals even the most ambitious (albeit briefly) considered unattainable. Enter the long distance runner, the hurdler, the vaulter; all equally focused on the competition offered by their rivals and that which burns inside. Obsessed with launching themselves further forward, they push the limits of gravity, and human physiology. Enter Joe LeSesne (a.k.a. The 187) US junglist. His debut full length, When Worlds Collide is like an athletic tournament increasingly tenacious with its biting rhythms, growing excessively louder and disruptive as each event takes center stage only to be completed within seconds as the judges measure who went highest, farthest and fasted. The wins and losses bid teams and their respective members against one another, themselves and the world. PhillyDelphia must be a dark place; a dirty landscape used to inform, motivate and inspire cold beats. 187 doesn’t only display a morose sense of the dancefloor, he also anticipates the crowds’ desire to be whimsical and relaxed: he answers the latter with jazzier vocal tracks replete with piano, guitar sounds and crashing hi-hats. The crowning achievement comes at the end as “5am Rinse” takes the stand to be crowned victorious. Recorded live at Steel City Jungle with MC Sphinx on the mic, “5am Rinse” is vividly dark, excruciatingly comfortable and haphazardly complex and ingeniously random in its crushing breakbeats and MC calls. (Jungle Sky 67 E. 3rd St. Ste. B NYC 10003)

Oneida A Place Called El Shaddai’s CD
So we were sitting there talking about grading students’ papers and admissions departments at colleges when things were said that jarred me. Education as an institution was sacred to me. Someone said that professors grade papers based in part on their mood, the day they were having. Admissions departments at major universities toss applications into the garbage if they feel like it. I was upset. I would never do such a thing to my students. Well, how about a record review? So my day has been hectic, I have a headache, I am tired and it is no fault of Oneida’s. Can I still find the strength to evaluate my subjective listening experience with A Place Called El Shaddai’s?
They seared the tips of my fingers. They, and the computer monitor glare blurred my vision. They are explicitly in your face and implicitly standing at your side as these songs run their course. My head pounded from the stress of the day, my limbs exhausted from repetitively stroking the keyboard’s square buttons crowned with the alphabet’s parts. They placed time in a vacuum with their guitar noise. The notion of skronk! set aside for more mature mannerisms like creating a din of reverb pulses. The din of my neighbors’ voices dissecting the problems within the educational institution that employs us and saves us from ruin was overshadowed by Oneida’s demands. They are nothing short of commanding of your senses with their stark, high-contrasts. (Turnbuckle 163 3rd Ave. #435 NYC 10003

Oneida Steel Rod EP CD
Now I know Nikki Sudden never wrote songs with the Butthole Surfers, and Suicide never backed up Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds when covering Stooges anthems, but the images explain what I’m hearing. Much like the danger of lightning striking you while raising a steel rod above your head amidst a storm, placing Oneida’s Steel Rod in the stereo is intoxicating in the danger that pours from the speaker cones. 6Ts keys seduce as guitars drunkenly swagger atop crashing cymbals then calm, only to start up like dark storm clouds picking and choosing where to through bolts of dangerous electric current at the fearing peasants. Garage rock never felt so dangerously unpredictable. (Jagjaguwar 1703 North Maple, Bloomington, IN 47404) – Keith York

ONeil, Tara Jane Peregrine CD
With a little help from her friends, Tara has pieced together one of the most intimate settings any listener can adapt to any surrounding or mood. Springboarding from her resume experience (Rodan, Sonora Pine, Retsin), Tara’s yearnings and ideas explored in a recording studio (Nicholas Vernhes did a fantastic job turning nobs on this one) are now available for your interior decorating needs. With collaborators Cynthia Nelson (Retsin, Ruby Falls) and Dan Littleton (Ida), Tara’s work is embraced, and held, while Peregrine remains her full vision throughout. Elegant, eloquent passages of soft-spoken vocal and strum make this one prepped for a Sunday morning this cold winter… moving from the bedroom to the kitchen to the couch all in one movement to Tara’s musical score. (Quarterstick POB 25342 Chicago, IL 60625) – Keith York

Optiganally Yours Exclusively Talentmaker! CD
Rob Crow (Thingy, Heavy Vegetable, Pinback, Physics) and Pea Hix (Tit Wrench, Lucas & Friends) join forces once again but this time sans Optigans. With their second album on the stereo, the weird-pop duo (and thrift-score instrument fetishists) embrace the thankfully under-collected Chilton Talentmaker, Vako Orchetrston, and Knickerbocker Bell Organ to create a fifteen song geek-pop homage to the toy machines. (Absolutely Kosher 417 Frederick St. S.F. CA 94117) – Keith York

.O.rang Fields and Waves CD
Flecked with elements of dub and Can, a couple of members of Talk Talk create a dark tapestry of post-Future Sound of London merging with the more spirited moments by This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance. ORANG remark that witnessing African Headcharge was an important step toward the development of their sound. This duo couldn’t reside further from AH’s muted drumscapes that still sadly reside in obscurity. Noted as being a result of improvisational ‘jam’ sessions and collaborations with other music notables - one could witness an elaborate scam that a couple of guys and a sampler couldn’t have done. While its moods are varied, Fields and Waves doesn’t leave me with a handful of questions nor new approaches to my constant rethinking of humanity. Instead, this album provides some soothing instrumental tracks of ambient thought and inaction. The lowlights were the tracks with vocals. (HitIt! 1617 North Hoyne Chicago, IL 60647)

Orange Cake Mix Lovecloud and Secret Tape CD
Jim Rao has been producing bedroom pop for several years now while headquartered in his Bristol, Connecticut bunker. Armed with a simple tape machine, some guitars, keyboards and his voice, Jim has crafted his own sound. A sound growing very different from his earlier self-released cassette tapes, and his past releases. Lovecloud and Secret Tape is a collection of loungey, sad pop songs akin to Jim Ruiz Group’s more Sarah-Records-ish moments and less of his Euro/jazz/lounge/cool pop. Orange Cake Mix is a smart production unit. Savvy of what his colleagues are researching and producing, forward thinking in creating songs that matter, historically accurate in his reference points to late 80s British psych pop, OCM thrives in a singular vision of creating a breath of fresh air in a crammed air-ductless community of artists. Much to the credit of being a solo personal venture, Jim can take the listener to different places with each song, with each release, never having to answer to any creative collaborators or dependents. Congratulations on being truly independent. (Blackbean and Placenta Tape Club 124 Ventura Avenue Oxnard, CA 93035)

Orangedrive Hospital Sessions CD
A couple of years back Michael Mathis (guitar, vocals) helped out with a Sportsguitar ( also from Lucerne, Switzerland) tour and the rest is history. Held up in Schweinesound studio, with the support of his friends (including Roland, Oliver and Oli of Sportsguitar), Michael produced the Orangedrive 4-song EP. With five additional songs, a few years later, Mathis and his crew have a domestic debut full of fuzz-drenched guitars, and dryhumping drum piloting. While it would stop short of telling the whole story, Orangedrive has very much the same pathos as Sportsguitar – leaning farther away from even their Spare Snare-isms – as the songs engage your senses as if lost in a cloud of distortion and melody. (Big Top 955 Massachusetts Ave. PMB 115 Cambridge, MA 02139, chris@bigtoprecords.com) - Keith York

Orange Humble Band Assorted C reams CD
Every time I open a magazine that discusses music, a nauseous feeling overcomes me. Flipping the pages of glossy and newsprint pages crammed with reviews and advertising reminds me of the commodity that music is today. Ironically, and hypocritically, I spend an inordinate amount of time at the keyboard defining my understanding of the latest crop of new releases.
One such release by the Orange Humble Band would be lauded as Aussie-Pop if there was such music magazine-coined term embedded in the consciousness of record shop geeks and geek-ettes. Britpop exiles and criminals sent to a south sea island perhaps? Soaring power pop "Ya Ya" melodies and strummy guitar lines evoke many ghosts...and a few poltergeists too. With a 6Ts sense about them, the Orange Humble Band are classic rock radio ready even if they are a "now" band. It's sometimes better to be a "then" band, than a "now" band...Assorted Creams is one of those instances. (Half A Cow 85 Mill St. Carolton NSW 2218 Australia) - Keith York

Orange Peels Square CD
Formerly calling themselves Allen Clapp & His Orchestra, The Orange Peels have left the domain of 7” singles and compilation contributions to present their second album (if you consider Allen Clapp’s 100% Chance of Rain as the debut) full of wonderful pop songs on a new label. After hearing rumors this record was coming out via X-Mas along with the much-awaited Summer Hits singles collection, Square comes to us from the same factory that manufactured and marketed the Legendary Jim Ruiz Group and Veruca Salt. Allen Clapp’s song writing (plus a few non-Clapp penned numbers) really shines with the new production and marketing angle, while his days recording in his house, Maz’s studio, his four track and inside his Volkswagen van seem to be behind him (them). As wonderful as these songs are, his shining moments may also be behind him. His vinyl output, though sparse and unpredictable, was much more spur-of-the-moment and closer to Allen recording his ideas than “Orange Peels, the band” recording their collective thoughts. In all fairness, the Orange Peels are a new band with some new ideas, capitalizing upon Allen Clapp’s genius. As a new band on the scene, folks will start comparing them with fine recording artists known for their Summershine, Sarah, Bus Stop or Creation releases, or even dating further back to folks like the Turtles. Sheer, summery, shining, glistening pop is what you get from this post-Huck, post-Mummies combo with a married couple wrapped inside. Not sure if they are quitting their dayjobs - but one should hope for an assemblage of a touring unit coming to a venue close by. (Minty Fresh PO Box 577400 Chicago, IL 60657)

Organica Transfuse CD
What comes across as a full band is really the end-result of genius-duo Scott Schlachter and Carl Royce. Providing all song writing and instrumentation themselves, Organica creates a fusion between the Lilys, Lenola and Flaming Lips bottom scoot psychedelia. With pop melodies and fuzzy string bending, the drum kit launches grooves onto the dinner plate serving up smiles all 'round. With only a couple of chefs in the kitchen nothing gets spoiled, innovation is allowed and the clientele makes return trips when the hunger pains return. Delicious. (Topaz POB 1532, Madison Square Station NYC 10159) – Keith York

Orso Long Time By CD
With ties to Red Red Meat, Rex, Califone, Him, and Loftus, the latest end-product of the congregation Orso is other-worldly. With the banjo as centerpiece, the back-woods charm of the instrument is stripped of its 20th century synonyms and replaced within a brand new context. Slightly off-kilter as it touches on carney culture, the ice-cream truck breaking the silence of the suburban neighborhood stirs the brain, dividing it equally amongst the two childhood scenarios. Attractive to fans of late-90s Perishable releases (quite different from early Red Red Meat 7”s on the band-established label), the Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar axis as well as those following the careers of aforementioned bands and Will Oldham, Orso listening is intoxicating – addictive its other-worldly magnetic pull. (Perishable POB 57-8804, Chicago, IL 60657-8804) – Keith York

Outrageous Cherry Nothing’s Gonna Cheer You Up CD
Those of us that put our thoughts on music releases into these informal paragraphs, cop lines and phrases from one another like wildfire. Music reviewer clichés are abundant in my descriptions and instead of apologizing I accept my faults and try to improve relating (to the reader) my appreciation for a song or a collection of songs into these sentences I type. Psych-pop is one of those labels/tags/genres invented by those that write about music, and one that I have always had a hard time using. Artists as diverse as Bevis Frond, Brian Jonestown Massacre, REM, and Spacemen 3 have all been tagged as psych influenced, deriving something from 60s psychedelia and above all writing pop songs. While not cloaking themselves in the garage psych, or the 60s surf sound, or the pop associated with the British Invasion or groups like Beach Boys, Mamas and the Papas, Turtles etc., Outrageous Cherry hold court on 90s psych with much cynicism. While their rock group ethics haven’t been compromised, those that collectively produced Nothing’s Gonna Cheer You Up are brighter than I had anticipated after hearing sporadic songs by them on mix tapes, compilations and radio stations. While my sentences do not effectively communicate their music, their brand of guitar-based rock music is quite good, is entertaining, and does loosely support the use of such loose tags of psych-pop. Time for a glass of spirits.
(Third Gear PO Box 1886 Royal Oak, MI 48068)

Oval Dok CD
So this is Oval. I’ve heard these guys hyped in more than one publication (of course, they’re publications that I don’t put a lot of faith in) and in more than one chat/mailing list/discussion on the internet. I put this on and I really have to wonder why they’re talked about so much. No, I didn’t really care for this and I'll tell you why, but if you’re a fan of Oval you might want to just skip on down to the next review.
First off. Loops bore me. Loops are tedious and static and generally squash out the sorts of things that I look for in music. Sure, I listen to a lot of repetitive stuff (if you listen on the surface) but stuff like Oval and Biosphere (reviewed elsewhere this issue) just test my patience. The sonic choices that have been made here are all the wrong ones in my book. Instead of going after a sense of space, I get an unavoidable straightjacketed feeling. Perhaps that was their intention, and if so, then kudos to them. They succeeded and made me take the disc out of the player rather quickly.
Dok is incredibly mannered, refined. I imagine that there was a lot of sweating done to make sure that everything was in its place before the disc was sent out to the pressers. A friend of mine described it as “library music” or gallery-opening music. Nothing that really was meant to be sat down and listened to. Meditation, perhaps, but I find that works best with nothing at all. I can imagine that this stuff is Top 40 list material in Huxley’s Brave New World, but that doesn’t mean that I want to listen to it for extended periods.
Even the rhythmic element which can be mildly appealing in regards to some electronic stuff (4:4 thumping house not withstanding) is almost totally absent here. It is monolithic without being grand or monumental in any way. For fans of electronic minimalism and readers of the Wire it’s likely to be coma-inducingly good. For me, it’s just kinda there. Kinda dry. Kinda flat. Like tap water left out in a plastic bottle on a hot day. If you’ve gotta drink, then it’s there, but you can do much, much better. (Thrill Jockey PO Box 476794 Chicago, IL 60647) - Matt Maxwell