When the man of many pseudonyms, Heinz Junkins pressed a hand-decorated copy of this album into my hand in a dark corner of The Fleece, he was perhaps a little reluctant to let go of this precious cargo. “I think it’s finished…” he trailed off, before disappearing once again into the crowd on a mission to distribute more copies of the disc. It was unclear at this point how, when or in what strange form the album – which delights in the enigmatic title “Yard Is Open” – would surface, so I decided on the idea of a preview so that the few readers who endure my ramblings could get some sense of what was to come. However, after living with the OLO Worms debut album for a good few months now, I’m not sure I’m any the wiser. But the good news is that very soon indeed, you will be able to hear this curious, shifting beast of a record for yourselves, in it’s near almost impossible to pin down glory. So I’m certainly not nearly ready to produce my usual screed of glib pronouncements and platitudes about it. Instead I thought I’d present the notes I made on the very first listen to the record. That way, you can perhaps experience with me the sounds, the sights and perhaps even the strange barnyard smells which herald this important milestone in the OLO Worms career… But firstly, the challenge is to figure out what’s real and what’s a product of your overworked and fanciful imagination. From the very opening seconds, this is a multi-layered, dense recording. Samples of conversation, strange sound effects and unexpected instrumental blarts appear then are gone as swiftly as they arrive. Did you really just hear that – or is it your excited synapses independently filling in the gaps? The OLO Worms inhabit a sort of post-media world, where all of the streams – television, music, and the endless babble of social networks – have melded into a single torrent of semi-consciousness. From this dreamlike tumble of images, snippets and soundbites they manage to extract the most absurd, and sometimes the least consequential – but then they reassemble them into something improbable, often hilarious, and almost always rather beautiful. I’ve long held that laughter is as relevant a means of appreciating music as any chin-stroking, aridly academic approach – and there are many laughs to be had as this surprising record spins out – from huge belly-laughs to more nervous, uncomfortable tittering at things which are only just in the realms of sanity, there is a sense of humour and genuine delight at the core of this album which shines strongly through. Some may find this difficult – because music has to be serious right? Well, no – you’re wrong.
On the opening track “Barnyard”, the narrator from Jeff Wayne‘s “War of the Worlds” seems to have fallen on hard times, and finds himself describing strange post-apocalyptic scenes in a world closely approximating our own. However, he is quick to point out that these were “old times/a wooden time“. The shocking dystopian vision of post-modern society inhabiting a farmyard spins out over a swooningly lovely backdrop. Blasts of brass and an angelic chorus of voices fill out the spaces created by a shuffling, baggy beat. It’s like Primal Scream meeting J.G Ballard in a shopping centre – probably during 1991-2 when both were enjoying something of a renaissance. Something more familiar but no less remarkable arrives next, in the form of “Back From England” release on a Fence 7″ single from 2010. This, I can state almost certainly, remains the only record ever to claim “Dino Freak” as it’s primary genre. Whilst no agreed definition for this is recorded, in practice this seems to mean insistently throbbing bass, shuffling woodblock-heavy percussion and sinister, haunted vocals which descend into a distinctly home-counties accented rap at the end. Seemingly random crys of “Mexico 1986!” carbon date these boys and give a hint to some of the formative experiences which underpin the OLO aesthetic. I’m sensing almost-complete Panini sticker albums somewhere in the OLO Worms collective past? I bet they always swapped to get the metallic silver team badges though. Onwards into the unknown once again, and I’ve found myself scouring social media for the evidence to support the next track – as I distinctly recalled seeing a picture of a sheet of paper with the lyrics of this odd little song scrawled on them – some business about actors who steal tractors? And sure enough, buried deep on Facebook is a lyric sheet for “Ol’ Boozy’s Chug Thump”. The name of this short, demented hoedown has survived the long gestation period of this record, along with the curious lyrical preoccupations. Taking almost as long to complete its fade out to silence as the entirety of the frantic rant lasts, this is a torrent of sometimes painful but wonderfully silly rhymes which dance around the country-lite rhythm playfully. Meanwhile odd sounds rebound around the mix, creating a cartoon-like strangeness. With “Ol’ Boozy” safely back in the barn, a tinkling cascade of metallic noise, like the heartsinking moment that house keys fall down a concrete staircase begins the next track entitled “Strays”, before a slightly off-kilter falsetto vocal kicks in with a refrain of “if you cut it right off/it starts the slippery slope“. Benefiting from the attentions of fellow Fence artist Rozi Plain, this is again rather beautiful. A mildly warped guitar joins along with a shudder of electronic undertow while things develop into something of an OLO anthem. Don’t be fooled though, this isn’t Coldplay or anything – not unless you played them at the wrong speed and in a different room at least. Then again, it’s pleasing to imagine this soundtracking “goal of the month” at some future point perhaps?
Following swiftly, “Barbershop” visits further uncharted – and perhaps advisedly so – waters. It begins with a interview which rivals in significance the Frost/Nixon encounter as Junkins stages a Skype summit with Rebecca Taylor of Slow Club fame. Their meandering chatter spans topics serious and bizarre, Taylor‘s honest and open northern vowels lulling us into a sense of false security as the music slowly winds into life. Then, with little warning of what is about to occur, a change of pace is signalled by a strange mockenspiel sound and suddenly a slinky, Barry White style groove sets up. This is accompanied by frankly some of the sleaziest vocals I’ve ever heard. The voice starts shrill then dips furtively and rather lewdly low, before resurfacing as an unhinged bark later in the track. It’s mostly all about sexy hairdressing it seems – which is certainly largely untouched territory for pop music. The last words are left for Rebecca, with an animalistic groan of “Hubba Hubba!“. I feel a bit grimy after this, to be honest. Cleansing is supplied by the sixth track, “Whacked By Pillow” which is a comparatively downbeat and pensive affair. It skitters in with the sound of a plague of insects, and centres on a delicate acoustic guitar melody which, along with the tinkling of wooden percussion and some tribal beats, provides a backdrop to sinister half-whispered vocals. There is a certain cinematic quality to this, but it would be one of those foreign films – probably impenetrably complex, likely black and white, and certainly with subtitles. Though in what strange language I’d not presume to guess. Stabs of metallic noise and gnarled twists of crunchy guitar add to the atmosphere as the moody bassline climbs towards the song’s climax and the OLO‘s provide a weird collective choral accompaniment. This all coalesces into something pretty spectacular – a slow-burning, dark knot of loveliness in the eye of a sometimes unsettling storm of an album.
Familiar from the recent “Image EP” and previously one of the groundbreaking “Polaroid” projects, the always welcome “Snake” explodes into life via a 16-bit computer sound – probably swiped from the part of the game when you defeat the level boss. Then a waspish, dub bassline stutters and shudders into life with what I can only describe as queer electronic biting and rending sounds punctuating the mix. Meanwhile a choir of voices coincidentally intones the melody from “Stepping Stone” by the Monkees, giving the whole thing a triumphant and anthemic air. Nagging electric guitar shards add to the complicated and heady brew, before the retro computer sounds drift back in while a distant voice states that “There’s a circle forming inside of my head…” before asking that age old, but ever important question “Are you a girl?“. I can see this one provoking lots of interesting remixes and potentially getting lots of dance-savvy people excited – and if it can get an old duffer like me shuffling around the living room its powers may know no limits. A marine influence permeates the next, very strange song entitled “Flipper”. A bleepy, electronic affair which sets its stall out early with “dolphins with laser guns” and the most remarkable chain of rhymes I’ve heard in some years involving alsatians, crustaceans, mutations, lubrication, fumigation and a host of other concerns too unsettling to mention. Beneath this is another of the absurdly addictive dub grooves which pop up throughout this record, shot through with melodic tumbles of guitar and earwax-loosening buzzing sounds. While thus far it’s clear we can attribute many unique attributes to the OLO Worms, I’m moved to wonder if they in fact possess the power to reanimate the dearly departed, because for their next trick on “Curves” they appear to have raised the shade of George Harrison and introduced him to in passing to Galaxie 500 for a shimmery, acoustic drift with military drums and gently melodic vocals provided by Gareth Jones. This is, by OLO standards, a ballad – focused on rockets and relationships. It’s a strangely formal musical interlude in a record which is generally unpredictable, but it ably demonstrates that this band is capable of expressing many moods and making really conventionally beautiful things alongside their more avant garde artistic endeavours.
As the album approaches its conclusion there are a couple of very odd, short, discordant interludes – the first of which extols the virtues of a varied diet as it suggests “Eating Every Living Thing” while clanging Beefheart-like guitars echo around the voices and pizza is consumed loudly and gluttonously. The second very short piece delights in the incongruously grand title of “Sometimes I Like To Take The Long Route Home” and introduces a muted trumpet – the sort of thing which signals a pratfall in an Ealing Comedy. It parps oddly for just around a minute or so – its hard to say exactly why of course, but it introduces a sort of nostalgic note to proceedings by evoking black and white films on wet Sunday afternoons. The end of the album proper comes with the pulsing, epic and complex beast which is “Sphinx”. The jungle sound effects, twittering electronic noises and almost sub-sonic bassline are merely an introduction to a truly unhinged rap. This song mutates several times during it’s course, and is often many things at the same time. I’d urge listening on headphones, perhaps with an another adult in the house – just in case, you understand – you can never be too careful with these things. The next twist brings in echoing, hollow stadium-rock guitars and a police siren which build to sonically uncomfortable levels. When it has reached its almost unbearable zenith it rather unexpectedly becomes a slice of tinny 1980s hair-metal, complete with screamy rock vocals, before ending it’s tortured existance with a single stroke on a triangle. In common with much of this record, there is so much going on here, layered in such challenging and unusual ways that it’s near impossible to describe in any coherent sense.
It’s taken a long time for this collection of songs to come together in the form of an album – and it’s fairly certain that before it finally reaches you, the listener, there will be all kinds of strange happenings to ensure it becomes a multimedia event in it’s own right. It’s important to remember here that the last OLO Worms EP was realised in the form of both a tiny vinyl USB-equipped coffin and a large, cumbersome vinyl cube. And that perhaps is part of the sense of balance the OLO Worms set up – tapping into the torrent of signals which showers all of us, every second of the day, they make damn sure they give something back which is greater than the sum of what they’ve misappropriated. They are always listening to the weird background chittering which most of us manage to tune out, and whether it takes the form of innovative music or just a picture of lots of cats considering some fishermen, they’re tapping into its latent artistic possibilities. In some ways, “Yard Is Open” has benefited from this long, slow public birth via social media – a concept which suits the OLO Worms perfectly with its endless stream of ideas, incongruities and absurdities. And quite apart from the initial oddness of this music and the deliberate attempts to abstract things away from the idea of a traditional ‘band’, this is a damn good record. There are moments of buttock-clenchingly tight art-pop, absurd rock-outs, perverse raps and lots of curious insights into the strange world of the OLO Worms.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The OLO Worms will release “Yard Is Open” on 13th August, and will launch this via live appearance at the Louisiana in Bristol on 10th August and The Old Police Station, Deptford on 11th August. The unsettling but hugely entertaining video for “Strays” can be seen here to give you just a hint of what to expect. In the meantime you can still obtain the digital release of the “Image EP” from Bandcamp, which provides an introductory glimpse into the world of the OLO Worms. The 7″ single release of “Back From England” is also still available via Fence Records.
When Fence Records announced their most recent grand scheme for making music just that little bit more special, I felt a familiarly strange mixture of excitement and heart-sinkingly blind panic. Because, when Fence tell you something is limited it genuinely is going to be a scare pleasure. Be it the finite number of precious Away Game tickets, or “Chart Ruse” – this subscription-based series of 7″ EPs all playing at 33rpm to squeeze in as much music as possible, the announcement is followed by blind panic among the Fence faithful. For me, this meant desperately competing for a terrible internet connection at a freezing East Croydon station, imagining the innocent passers-by accidentally stealing my PayPal password over the airwaves. It was worth the chaos and concern however, as so far lucky subscribers have received Withered Hand‘s splendid “Heart Heart” EP, and will shortly get their hands on this new release by Delifinger.
Delifinger – also known as Matthew Lacey – is part of the OLO Worms. That curiously complex Bristolian collective which is going to be responsible shortly for one of the most dizzyingly varied debut albums of the year. As one of the songwriters which provide some form and structure to the otherwise strangely scatter-gun approach which the OLOs take, Lacey‘s craft needs to be subtle and versatile – and this EP showcases this very ably indeed. There are hints of his other work here too, as title track “Escapes” edges in gently with ominous beats and strange electronic noises. Lacey‘s delicate multitracked vocals take on a strangely traditional, madrigal-like quality in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the track. Somewhere in the midst of this, the droning equipment comes to the fore and the guitar takes centre stage. Since there is just a hint of summery west coast pop buried in here too, it ends up being both ancient and modern all at once. Meanwhile the more upbeat “Take It Slowly” is a gorgeously odd nugget of country pop, complete with a bassline borrowed from a Johnny Cash hit and a swooning chorus reminiscent of Gene Clark at his lyrical finest. Harmonising effortlessly with both his own rebounding voice and that of Anneliesa his wife, Lacey‘s simple but effective guitar is augmented by charmingly low-budget organ sounds in these sections too. Again I’m struck by the timelessness of Lacey‘s writing – and this could just as easily be some late-sixties psyche pop single spinning on the deck. It’s simple, direct and incredibly enjoyable.
When we reach the portentously titled “It’s Not Going To End Well For Me”. Delifinger has entered the strangely reflective zone where he is often at his best. The musical backing here is perhaps more reminiscent of his work in OLO Worms with fractured sound fragments sliding in and out of a soundtrack constructed from rumbling bass sounds and synthetic drums. Lacey sets out the dark territory he’s going to explore with the opening couplet “There’s too much on my plate/my bones deserve a break“. This is a tale of being stretched too far, and the danger of being on the edge of your patience and tolerance. As the hiss of tinny percussion sounds slides in, the vocals slip even further into the background and start to shatter and fragment. Clipped, weird yelps and spectral moans echo around and everything becomes just a little bit disconcerting, as somehow this is the soundtrack to an inner monologue which you get the sense you really shouldn’t be hearing. While this reflective approach bewildered me a little in the live performance at The Fleece, it makes much more sense here, reverberating spookily in my headphones. The organ which heralds the coming of closing track “Mining” rumbles equally ominiously, and rather surprisingly that is just about the size of it – a brief, strangely gloomy drone fading out as the needle lifts.
Atmospheric and far more complex than the simple instrumentation might imply, Delifinger has turned in a strange, sometimes impenetrable but always compelling EP which is a very worthy addition to this series of Fence releases. It will of course come with a remix by another Fence type by the time it reaches subscribers, and will be subject to the witheringly defiant approach to digital releases which means a download code might follow, at some unknown future occasion. Until then, the rare pleasure of lifting a real, tangible audio artefact out of it’s beautifully designed sleeve and placing it onto the deck should be celebrated. The fact is that Delifinger will transport you to a place where formats just don’t matter.
In deference to the concept behind the “Chart Ruse” series, there will be no audio preview at the end of this review. You’ll just have to take my word for what strangely subdued pleasures await with the “Escapes EP” – though you can watch the video for “Take It Slowly” here. Non-subscribers can pre-order the EP from Fence Records directly here. Delifinger shares a launch with Seamus Fogarty at The Wilmington Arms, London on Thursday 19th April, and in his native Bristol at Café Kino on Friday 20th April.
As I wobbled my unsteady way over the cobbles among the chattering commuters of Bristol, I speculated on how long it was since I’d been to The Louisiana. Too long was my conclusion, but once inside the place was familiar enough. Tonight was the inaugural Hooops night – not so much a club as an experience encompassing art, performance and a dose of unhinged genius directly from the mind of Heinz Junkins – a local luminary and OLO Worms member.
Quite aside from the line-up assembled this evening, it has to be said that Heinz is a talented guy in his own right, with Hooops doubling as the launch night for his art exhibition in the newly opened cellar of The Louisiana. The small, whitewashed oblong room was adorned with his works – on one wall, a series of giddy, brightly coloured and sometimes visceral paintings. Curious creatures with disturbingly human appendages cavorting under strange disconnected slogans. Opposite, a wall of small digital prints – sketches, often as much textual as artistic, little snippets of curious ideas. It was intriguing to watch the audience reaction as we assembled for the first act of the night – surprise, confusion, amusement. Most of all though, genuine pleasure at the playful oddity of Junkins work – something I’ve not seen often on my very occasional forays into galleries. And as we pondered this visual feast something strange happened… With a blarting harmonica call and the sound of morris-dancer style foot bells, Ichi strode through the audience on musical stilts. The slight, timid Japanese artist tottered to the front of the room where a steel drum, some rather taped-together electronics and a box of accessories sat. Wobbling down from his stilts, these too doubled as instruments, one featuring a two-string banjo which Ichi deployed both as a makeshift cello and a guitar during his performance. It’s difficult to describe what followed – sometimes it was quiet, delicate and touching – often it was funny, bizarre even. Whatever it was, Ichi totally engaged the audience, and when he didn’t he just threw ping-pong balls at them! Lyrically, it was harder to fathom – often barked in a strange, shrill Japanese – or via a distorting megaphone – the vocals were indistinct. Occasional snippets would surface (“this song is about a kumquat“) but it didn’t matter a bit. His short performance was dramatic, hilarious and affecting. What more could you ask? As Ichi strode back through the room on stilts at the end of his set, still jangling like a one-man folk festival, it struck me just how much guts it takes to pitch up in front of an audience and do something so alien and unlikely. For my money, the man is a bit of a hero.
Using the possibilities of the venue fully, we made the trip upstairs to a room I was more familiar with to see SJ Esau. Whilst a world away from Ichi, SJ Esau is an equally hard to pin down prospect. Over curious, weirdly suggestive video projections, the one man multi-instrumental music machine manipulated loops and beats which thundered oddly around the room. A gut-churning, glitchy bass and lots of scattergun guitar chimes topped things off musically, while he intoned lyrics often through an array of distorting effects. The vocals were almost as interesting as the mesmerising music here – often a robotic semi-rap, then a warm, humanly folky tone, and finally on the closing “I Threw A Wobbly” an outright punky howl. Almost obscured by the lighting and projections, the man himself was content to slip into the background of the performance. When he chats, he’s a humble and funny guy – not nearly as arch and terrifying as his sometimes rather stark soundscapes might suggest. Occasionally the complex, shifting musical background drifts into something more like trance – and I’m aware that not for the first time tonight I’m out of my depth and having my assumptions tested by Hooops. No bad thing. SJ Esau is complex, layered and challenging. I leave the room a convert, with records to track down, which is always a sign of success.
Getting caught in interesting chats and things mean I miss Rachael Dadd who is back in the basement – but I make a mental note to catch up again based on what I’ve heard elsewhere. However, this puts me in pole position for Rozi Plain‘s performance back up here in the attic. Drawing a huge crowd, Bristol-based Fence Records artist Rozi is on fine form tonight. Her spacious, delicate guitar playing and beautifully fragile vocals filling a room which is utterly silent despite the crowd. Accompanied by a clarinet and saxophone duo who are keen to assert their “violent monopoly” on that particular instrumental ensemble, Rozi works her way through a handful of delirious, summery folk-pop numbers including recent single “Humans” which elicits a buzz of recognition from the audience. There is something earthy, warming and welcoming about Rozi‘s voice. It’s like receiving a musical hug, and as someone standing beside me whispered to her friend “I could listen to her sing forever“. Nothing I clumsily concoct as a review can better that description really.
There is a bit of delay before FOUND take the stage – but it’s for good reason. A fair chunk of the audience want to know who won the Mercury Music Prize. I genuinely couldn’t give a damn usually – the annual circus of the same dreary old acts, token Jazz efforts and worthy but patronisingly tokenistic ethnic inclusions bores me silly. But this time King Creosote and Jon Hopkins have not only scored a nomination, but seen the odds dramatically narrow via the sheer force of critical acclaim. Whilst none of us ‘care’ about the Mercury prize officially, we all want Kenny to win. As Ziggy Campbell concisely puts it from the stage “He’s….well, he’s our KING!“. Frustrated by the delay FOUND begin playing with a pensive, slow-burning take on “Mullokian”. Somewhere during this, the news lands that sort-of-local girl PJ Harvey has taken the prize. There’s a genuine sense of deflation – it all seemed so possible somehow. But FOUND pay tribute with a wonderfully heartfelt take on KC‘s “For The Last Time Hello” before returning to their own familiar territory. A glitchy, stuttering “Anti Climb Paint” sets them back on track. The audience has thinned a bit, due to that time-honoured and slightly irritating Bristol tendency to support local favourites but shun touring acts. However, the crowd that stayed are witness to an edgy and tense set from FOUND drawn mostly from “Factorycraft”. Just before the set’s climax Heinz scatters the audience with banknotes printed on tissue paper before a storming “Johnny I Can’t Walk The Line” and a final artistic act by posing with a stickman picture.
The party continues downstairs with OLO Worms spinning tunes, but I slink off over the slippery cobbles once again wondering if I’m getting too old for late nights on a Tuesday? The miracle of all this is though, that Hooops has meant there is something actually worth doing tonight – a friendly, funny and bewildering mix of art and music, novelty and variety alongside performances from truly fine musicians who don’t get nearly enough exposure locally or nationally. More of an event or a spectacle than almost any other gig I’ve attended in Bristol, with lots of effort to do something memorable and worthwhile very much evident alongside the music and general insanity. Heinz Junkins deserves congratulations for waking up Bristol from it’s hipper-than-thou usual self just a little tonight. I want there to be more Hooops, soon. And it’s still a shame about that Mercury….
I’m sometimes rebuked for overlooking what’s happening in my local music scene in favour of things further afield. It’s probably a fair comment, but the mind-numbingly steady diet of tribute and covers bands here, and a disappointing lack of ingenuity in those playing their own compositions (with some notable exceptions of course) doesn’t really inspire me hugely. However, there is one local act which came to my attention a while back via their Fence connections – but who I’ve hardly dared to write about. However, perhaps now it’s time to consider the perennially complicated, often bewildering but never dull world of OLO Worms? The basic premise is four gents from Bristol who individually appear to have a wealth of talent including music, painting and cinematography among a great deal else. Alone they could all probably be fairly interesting artists in their own right, but together this creates a multimedia cultural behemoth which simply refuses to take itself seriously long enough to cement its form. Patched together with a love-hate relationship with popular celebrity culture – and particularly British TV – this creates a curiously dizzy, mildly disturbing world view which is somewhere on the spectrum between psychadelia and psychosis.
This release is part of “Poloroids” – a series of three snapshots of as yet incomplete projects. Each has been delivered in a very limited physical release numbering just a handful – the first buried in pots of earth and the second hidden in the stock of a local second-hand music shop on Record Store Day. The third however is a little bit special – three lucky winners will have their portrait painted by the band, with the music concealed on memory stick and embedded within the papier-mâché proboscis of the resulting painting. Thus, these chosen few, should they wish to play the music they’ve acquired, will need to very much literally cut off their noses to spite their face.
This is all of course a refreshingly clever and entertaining take on the complexities of the post-digital music industry – but what is the music like? I confess I’d assumed until fairly recently that this would be equally bizarre in nature, very much a part of the extended artistic statement. However, tempting though it would be to dismiss this entire project as a novelty or a stunt, this is actually pretty incredible and weirdly compelling stuff. Firstly “Badge” is introduced by odd sub-sonic bass tones before distubring and disembodied voices begin to echo around the mix. A strange melody forms, built from what could easily be the screeching of a dental drill, warped and twisted through the OLO Worms‘ compendium of bizarre electronic trickery. A glacially paced beat supports things, as more yammering voices join the fray and a quietly unnerving misanthropic rant is uttered. This is genuinely disturbing stuff – and definitely not to be listened to in the dark. In strange ways it has more in common with the sluggish grind of some of the darkest metal than it does with other forms of electronic music. As the track shimmers away into silence, it’s impossible not to reflect on the odd but compelling nature of what you’ve just heard. Meanwhile “Neutral Zones” is a quieter proposition, but what it lacks in volume is entirely exceeded in its sinister presence. A brooding rumble with strange flecks of inverted percussion provides a cinematic backdrop to a surprisingly straightforward and appealing vocal. There are hints here of Silver Columns on a serious opiate-induced comedown, more “pissed-off” than blissed-out, but still strangely resilient and defiant in the face of utter miserableness. Then the entire track starts to mutate before ones ears – a low, warbling drone sets in to replace the vocals while curious jittering electronic pulses and synthesised voices dance their way to the end of the piece. This is a dark and claustrophobic release which leaves you questioning your own sanity, let alone that of its clearly unhinged but highly talented creators.
I’d urge you to listen to this complex, unsettling but weirdly satisfying music, and indeed to experience the videos which feature the trademark off-kilter, zero budget OLO Worms dressing-up fun to accompany the sounds. I can’t promise you’ll find more of the same out there – because almost everything which this bunch of odd but entertaining folks get involved in seems to end up sounding different to anything else I’ve ever heard. That is, in itself, an excellent reason to join the bandwagon.
You can find all kinds of bizarre, confusing and ultimately entertaining OLO Worms related media on their website and via their blog on Tumblr. I’ve yet to determine a way of actually purchasing or otherwise obtaining “Poloroid #3″ aside from being one of the three recipients of the physical release, however you can enjoy the tracks in audio and video form at the sites above.
Various OLO Worms will DJ at FOUND‘s upcoming show with Rozi Plain and SJ Esau at the Louisiana in Bristol on 6th September. This also serves as the opening night of OLO member Heinz Junkins‘s art exhibition in the Louisiana basement.
... Songs Heard on Fast Trains - documenting a collection of personal musings on music which fuelled and sometimes inspired my travels between 2010 and 2012. You'll find lots of pointless introspection and turgid reflection here - with some interesting MP3s (for evaluation purposes only of course) and the occasional new discovery thrown in for good measure. It's also fairly likely that I paid good money for the majority of music I wrote about here.