OH SEES
Oh Sees are the sound of pure creation. A sonic life form so strange that the line between evolution and mutation has not only blurred, but bent.
This is a band that has released an album every year since 2003 - with ’05, 06’, 08’ ’09, 11’ and ‘16 featuring double releases. Prolific is a word that comes to mind. Uninhibited is another. Genres peel off of Oh Sees like spent skin as they molt their way through punk, surf, garage, psychedelia, hard rock, folk and avant garde, changing their sound from album to album and year to year.
Created by the energetic and enigmatic John Dwyer in an effort to release experimental home recordings, Oh Sees have seen numerous releases, incarnations and names. Known for a decidedly whimsical lo-fi aesthetic, the band has garnered a cult following through unabashed musical exploration and endlessly energetic stage shows.
Oh Sees have appeared with as little as 1 and as many as 6 players at different points in their 20-year career, and you may have been introduced to them as a number of different bands - Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound, The Ohsees or The Oh Sees. When we saw them at Pickathon in 2017, they went by Thee Oh Sees. They’d simplified things by the time they came to Portland.
It’s a cold, clear October night, and the atmosphere in the sold-out Crystal Ballroom is manic testament to the city’s fanbase. It’s going to be a long evening - three opening acts will set the stage, and Prettiest Eyes have actually been introduced on the event’s website by Dwyer himself, in expectedly inventive language.
“...just a soup of dance and mouths agog - brutal, fractured, pogoing beats… an extro-sensual bass- ist who climbs inside of your mind-clothes while grinding out aggressively greasy throbs and pulls… they were cake-takers that night.”
The music is loud, even for the Crystal, and those who are dancing this early are really going for it. The lights are almost out - the bassist is wearing a cowboy hat and the drummer is the singer, howling black shapes into the room. It is a strange and beautiful scene.
Where Prettiest Eyes inhabited mostly shadow, Oh Sees cover the stage in glittering symbols and strings, a blockade of instrumentation from behind which 5 aliens-in-disguise will launch their sonic offensive. With over 20 EPs and LPs to their name, it’s anyone’s guess as to what they’ll play, but their most recent release Face Stabber seems a likely option. This 14-track beast mutates before your very ears, sporting blistering punk rock, experimental ambience, slow-rolling psych grooves resplendent with horns and organ and so much more. Three or four bands could’ve written this album and I’d believe it.
The 14-minute Scutum & Scorpious sounds like it was played, but we can’t be sure. Crowd favorite C was definitely in there towards the end. So numerous were the solos and breakdowns that the 21-minute Henchlock could’ve easily camouflaged its colossal bulk without a distinctive start or end. Punk jam bands are a rarity - an exhausting, will-bending musical treat - and Oh Sees are at the top of their game right now.
Dwyer is ephemeral and brutal. He lunges, cradles his guitar like a child, fires it like an assault rifle. One moment he’s posing like McJagger, hand on his hip, the next he wears a reptilian scowl, eyes bugging out. Spitting and oozing sweat, he becomes more goblin than man, and suddenly so many Oh Sees cover artworks make sense.
Drummers Dom Ringone and Paul Quattrone command attention the entire set, their punishing beats as similar as their names most of the time. Fills are plentiful, as are drum solos, and when the two do diverge the rhythms created are hairy and many-legged. Tim Hellman and Thomas Dolas support on bass and synths, weaving hypnotic melodies that anchor the more explosive elements to earth.
Constant crowd-surfing and moshing shakes the springboard-floor of the Crystal Ballroom for over two hours - Dwyer allows breaks only once or twice, thanking Portland for their energy quickly before diving back into the sludge. The band looks on the verge of collapse, Dwyer like he’s about to molt out of his human-mask with every impossible riff. Most of the oversold room is doing their best to move around as much as possible, and for a while the chaos is perfect.
Listen to Face Stabber when you have a good 80 minutes and an open mind. Heck, take a gander at any of their 20 other works - it’s a quest you can sink a lot of hours into, learn a lot from.
Whatever you do, see this mystical band live. There’s no replacement. Bumps well with cutoffs, scraped knees and dilated pupils.
♥ Zach
