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CF 034LP
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2022 repress. 2014 release. "Recorded at home in the fall of 2013 with a variety of synthesizers, drum machines and assorted handmade electronics, Damaged Bug is Oh Sees mastermind John Dwyer's latest bit of cracked pop alchemy. The project is the cure to the ailment of too much guitar for too long. Fizzing and sputtering like a glowing, temperamental cockpit control panel, Dwyer bunkered deep in a blinking laboratory, penning songs about the long arc of our travels across space and time. Propulsive beats and synthetic veneers coat laser-guided melodies reflecting off shiny metal surfaces while instrumental interludes pop in and out like breaks in the asteroid belt. A far-out side of our main man -- nocturnal, hard-wired, and chrome-plated. Hubba Bubba features original artwork by Deirdre White."
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CF 092LP
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2022 repress. 2017 release. "Flat Worms belt-sanded everyone with their 7-inch on Volar, and Castle Face is proud as new papas to present their debut album. The band continues their ride on a buzz-saw wave of feedback-tipped riffs into the middle distance, the smog-choked sunset receding in the rearview, with a thousand-yard dead pan stare surgically pinned to a high octane set of boredom-energized punk pistons. This is an ear-ringing missive from the end of the cul-de-sac, a mirage wavering above a mid-sized American suburb at dusk, with the constellations bleached black by the sprawl. A little Wipers, a little Wire, and a lot of late-capitalist era anxious energy -- Flat Worms scratch the itch quite nicely."
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3LP
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CF 143LP
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"The following story might be bullshit (drug use and memory enhancements): years ago, I was sitting at home staring into the middle distance and the phone on the wall rang (that should denote how long ago this was). On the other end was the booker from The Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, who had never called me before. She was excited about the show they had that night and was calling people to invite them. Apparently, the night before a band called Laddio Bolocko had played and were so mesmerizing, so strong that they had offered them the next night, which was open. I was intrigued as no band had ever warranted this invite previously to my knowledge. This was new and exciting territory. I had my ass and ears handed to me that evening. Scorching, pummeling, deep waters ran over me as I stood, beer in hand, mouth open. My memory may be embellishing but I remember a sax as big as me, drums that were physically hanging on by a thread, and twin electric strings that reeled sinister sprites over my head in outwardly circular patterns. Aggressive, far-out fractals burned in my brain. I had never seen anything like this band, and never have again. That's why it's so shocking to wait around all these years for someone to pick up the thread and re-release these three perfect recordings on LP for the first time... and still be waiting. So, I'm happy to announce, Castle Face is here with a 3xLP remedy. We've been working with all the original members of Laddio Bolocko and sifting through to put together this concise LP box set of what is arguably their strongest home studio recorded material. Included here (for the first time on wax) are 'Strange Warmings Of Laddio Bolocko', 'In Real Time' and 'As If By Remote'. Includes former members of Dazzling Killmen, Panicsville, the Psychic Paramount, and Mars Volta. For fans of Can, This Heat, The Residents, improvisation (really, they are hard to compare, they are so singular in sound)." --John Dwyer
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CD
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CF 142CD
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"The folks at Castle Face dig a good trance. Hypnosis, mesmerization, and brain trickery are some of their favorite results of deep listening and it is a suggestive, ritualistic and dreamlike vibe that Bronze ooze like pheromones all over their excellent new record. Absolute Compliance is a truly hypnogogic group of tunes from Bronze on their best and weirdest behavior and it hits all Castle Face's favorite things about them immediately and repeatedly: insistently strange synth voicings emanating from Miles Friction's mad scientist's lab worth of equipment, controlled by a homemade-looking oversized knob; Brian Hock's throbbing, woolly, hall-of-mirror grooves; and above it all Rob Spector's thousand yard croon, the vaguely familiar touchstone amongst these Lynchian, mutated surroundings -- these are songs of dreams and nightmares, hidden rituals observed, futuristic coliseum entertainments displaced in time, sci-fi jams of an uncertain future. Bronze are one-of-a kind great and if unfamiliar, go find their other records (including their great live record for Castle Face) and get caught up. They are real-deal weirdo kings of San Francisco and their spell is not easily dissipated once cast."
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CF 142LP
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LP version. "The folks at Castle Face dig a good trance. Hypnosis, mesmerization, and brain trickery are some of their favorite results of deep listening and it is a suggestive, ritualistic and dreamlike vibe that Bronze ooze like pheromones all over their excellent new record. Absolute Compliance is a truly hypnogogic group of tunes from Bronze on their best and weirdest behavior and it hits all Castle Face's favorite things about them immediately and repeatedly: insistently strange synth voicings emanating from Miles Friction's mad scientist's lab worth of equipment, controlled by a homemade-looking oversized knob; Brian Hock's throbbing, woolly, hall-of-mirror grooves; and above it all Rob Spector's thousand yard croon, the vaguely familiar touchstone amongst these Lynchian, mutated surroundings -- these are songs of dreams and nightmares, hidden rituals observed, futuristic coliseum entertainments displaced in time, sci-fi jams of an uncertain future. Bronze are one-of-a kind great and if unfamiliar, go find their other records (including their great live record for Castle Face) and get caught up. They are real-deal weirdo kings of San Francisco and their spell is not easily dissipated once cast."
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CF 050LP
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2022 repress. "John Dwyer has a surprise... While everyone eagerly anticipates the next Oh Sees record, he's been working tirelessly in his synth laboratory, hand-crafting a follow-up to last year's neon-noir Damaged Bug debut -- one that shakes up the snow globe considerably. If Hubba Bubba was a brush with a robotic exoskeleton on deep-space patrol, Cold Hot Plumbs visits the alien world that sent it into the cosmos. Lush, textural and psychedelic, the songs breathe with an otherworldly sadness and heart. Barbed, sophisticated arrangements flower in every direction. The vintage-perfect sound palette would be window dressing if not for the songs themselves: fresh, vital, and above all catchier than the flu. Cold Hot Plumbs is a strange, beautiful, and oddly infectious addition to Dwyer's oeuvre, and not one to be missed."
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CD
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CF 141CD
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"Gliding in on the twin engine discordant tones we've come to love from EXEK comes their new transmission Advertise Here. Beats bumping up thru a flapping spring reverb, gilded production choices, striped bass bubbling in the cauldron. With each pass of the witch's ladle, words float in the steam over the cacophonous concoction. The coven that croons together slays together, with every layer peeling back on our ear's tongue we will exclaim 'wicked' -- perhaps their strongest effort yet. The twin engines reappear now, tardy, guitar and synthesis, rounded edges, worn and ever so slightly fuzzed out -- perfection. This LP strives for new lyrical highs in my opinion. Pop at an arm's length, thru a greasy lens: A conversation. A conversation on drugs. A passing comment that sticks an utterance from the death bed. Reminiscent of Brian Eno, White Fence, PiL, Full Circle, ESG, all things Geoff Barrows, Eroc, Lard Free, and music of free weirdos everywhere. This one is the mossy titled deck of a half submerged shipwreck, a green light in a red room, a lump of clay, the end of the night when you think 'perhaps I should have left ages ago,' but it's too late now... you're in too deep... might as well have one more dance." "This LP is leaping even further out into the unknown for EXEK. A trip indeed, full of hits with zero diss and lots of hiss on no near miss." --John Dwyer
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LP
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CF 140LP
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LP version. "Often when music is constructed with synths and other electronically generated sound makers, their level of exactitude and control is such that the vocalist will either wittingly or otherwise seek to emulate the relative artifice of the soundscape. This is often done to great effect, think Kraftwerk. But what if there was a unit whose music was synth-generated but the vocals were coming from a hot-blooded, singing-for-the-cheap-seats approach? If done well, it's a case of two great tastes that taste great together, which brings me to System Exclusive. Their multi genre / time period collision is like a car accident where all parties walk away not only unscathed but sure they had a great time, like two different recording sessions sharing the same space and making it work. Vocalist Ari Blaisdell (previously of Lower Self, The Beat Offs) co-exists excellently amidst the driving beats and synth waves and her guitar further helps to jailbreak the tunes from the often sterile entrapments that synths provide. Matt Jones (previously of Male Gaze, Blasted Canyons, and continuing Castle Face behind-the-scenesman)'s smart use of live drums bring great juxtaposition against the machines. Ari's irony-free sincere delivery is the perfect closer on this very cool record, recorded ably by Enrique Tena Padilla (Osees, Wand, Beach House) in their backyard studio mid-pandemic and adorned with original artwork by Miles Wintner (L.A. Takedown, Mr. Elevator, Devon Williams). If you don't get this slab of goodness, well, that act of non-compliance will confirm you as the pain-in-the-ass that many have described you to be in great detail during Zoom chats. How dare they! Prove them wrong! Reduce their snark to mere pseudo-intellectual piffle! Your lifeline arrives in March. Grab it." --Henry Rollins
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CF 141LP
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LP version. "Gliding in on the twin engine discordant tones we've come to love from EXEK comes their new transmission Advertise Here. Beats bumping up thru a flapping spring reverb, gilded production choices, striped bass bubbling in the cauldron. With each pass of the witch's ladle, words float in the steam over the cacophonous concoction. The coven that croons together slays together, with every layer peeling back on our ear's tongue we will exclaim 'wicked' -- perhaps their strongest effort yet. The twin engines reappear now, tardy, guitar and synthesis, rounded edges, worn and ever so slightly fuzzed out -- perfection. This LP strives for new lyrical highs in my opinion. Pop at an arm's length, thru a greasy lens: A conversation. A conversation on drugs. A passing comment that sticks an utterance from the death bed. Reminiscent of Brian Eno, White Fence, PiL, Full Circle, ESG, all things Geoff Barrows, Eroc, Lard Free, and music of free weirdos everywhere. This one is the mossy titled deck of a half submerged shipwreck, a green light in a red room, a lump of clay, the end of the night when you think 'perhaps I should have left ages ago,' but it's too late now... you're in too deep... might as well have one more dance." "This LP is leaping even further out into the unknown for EXEK. A trip indeed, full of hits with zero diss and lots of hiss on no near miss." --John Dwyer
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CD
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CF 140CD
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"Often when music is constructed with synths and other electronically generated sound makers, their level of exactitude and control is such that the vocalist will either wittingly or otherwise seek to emulate the relative artifice of the soundscape. This is often done to great effect, think Kraftwerk. But what if there was a unit whose music was synth-generated but the vocals were coming from a hot-blooded, singing-for-the-cheap-seats approach? If done well, it's a case of two great tastes that taste great together, which brings me to System Exclusive. Their multi genre / time period collision is like a car accident where all parties walk away not only unscathed but sure they had a great time, like two different recording sessions sharing the same space and making it work. Vocalist Ari Blaisdell (previously of Lower Self, The Beat Offs) co-exists excellently amidst the driving beats and synth waves and her guitar further helps to jailbreak the tunes from the often sterile entrapments that synths provide. Matt Jones (previously of Male Gaze, Blasted Canyons, and continuing Castle Face behind-the-scenesman)'s smart use of live drums bring great juxtaposition against the machines. Ari's irony-free sincere delivery is the perfect closer on this very cool record, recorded ably by Enrique Tena Padilla (Osees, Wand, Beach House) in their backyard studio mid-pandemic and adorned with original artwork by Miles Wintner (L.A. Takedown, Mr. Elevator, Devon Williams). If you don't get this slab of goodness, well, that act of non-compliance will confirm you as the pain-in-the-ass that many have described you to be in great detail during Zoom chats. How dare they! Prove them wrong! Reduce their snark to mere pseudo-intellectual piffle! Your lifeline arrives in March. Grab it." --Henry Rollins
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LP
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CASTLE 018LP
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2022 repress. "We all know the type: prolific bands that commit every loose thought, stray idea and 90-second song fragment to tape. Bands that pay no attention to little inconveniences like 'release cycles' or 'self-editing,' and instead decide that quantity equals quality, creating a discography more labyrinthine, imposing and -- ultimately -- exhausting than the cast of creatures in a sci-fi novel. Here is why none of that applies to Thee Oh Sees. Because each of the dozen-plus albums they've released since 2004 possesses a distinct personality and represents a different point along the path of John Dwyer's slow transformation from auteur of woozy, bare-bones four-track psychedelia to goggle-eyed garage rock marauder backed at long last by a band that both shares and stokes his singular vision. Because drop a needle on any record and -- to their great credit -- it takes several songs before you're convinced it's Thee Oh Sees. The seasick hundred-bottles-of-rum shanty 'What the Driven Drink,' from 2007's delirious Sucks Blood exists in a different galaxy than the rollercoastering 'Chem-Farmer' from last year's Carrion Crawler / The Dream; the doomy doo-wop of 'Blood on the Deck' hardly seems like the product of the same band that delivered the yelping 'Ruby Go Home' in 2009. And the band that made last year's engrossing Putrifiers II seems like a distant cousin to the one delivering Floating Coffin -- arguably the most varied and textured Oh Sees record to date. Chalk some of the group's cunning chameleonic ability to Dwyer's fifteen-year resume. The driving force behind such beloved and sonically disparate bands as Coachwhips and Pink and Brown, Dwyer's increased fidelity to Thee Oh Sees and only Thee Oh Sees is evidence of a newfound sense of purpose and focus. Where once Dwyer used to funnel his divergent artistic ideas through a host of different channels, lately he's been finding ways to make all of those impulses function within the framework of Thee Oh Sees -- who have in turn grown closer and tighter and sharper with each eye-popping, jaw-dropping live show. That sense of unity is palpable throughout Floating Coffin, the next chapter in the story of Thee Oh Sees, the one where they fix their fury against the onrushing night. It's another blistering demonstration of Thee Oh Sees greatest trick: they're the only prolific band who doesn't put out records often enough."
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CD
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CF 144CD
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"What's this? Today's holiday gift? One final transmission from the core of the planet! Cresting slabs of concrete and powdered bone, rich soil -- improvisation freak flag flitters atop a gutted highrise: Gong Splat. Featuring Ryan Sawyer on drums, Greg Coates on upright bass, Wilder Zoby on synth and mellotron, Andres Renteria on conga, bongos and hand percussion, and John Dwyer on guitar, synths, pan flute, cuÃca, hand percussion, space drum and effects. This one is spitting fat and neon night-light city drives, white in the corner of the pilot's mouth. Furry, fuzzy and frenetic, motorik and full of blood-rich ticks...maggots unite! There's a show tonight! Welcome back humans."
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LP
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CF 144LP
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LP version. "What's this? Today's holiday gift? One final transmission from the core of the planet! Cresting slabs of concrete and powdered bone, rich soil -- improvisation freak flag flitters atop a gutted highrise: Gong Splat. Featuring Ryan Sawyer on drums, Greg Coates on upright bass, Wilder Zoby on synth and mellotron, Andres Renteria on conga, bongos and hand percussion, and John Dwyer on guitar, synths, pan flute, cuÃca, hand percussion, space drum and effects. This one is spitting fat and neon night-light city drives, white in the corner of the pilot's mouth. Furry, fuzzy and frenetic, motorik and full of blood-rich ticks...maggots unite! There's a show tonight! Welcome back humans."
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CD
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CF 138CD
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"Ajo Sunshine (pronounced 'Ahh-Ho') is heralded by an alarming horn ensemble, stabbing with the dramatic urgency of a killer's theme in a midnight movie. It's a jarring but appropriate entry point for this brilliantly blasted listen, an array of exquisitely sharp edges punctuated by kaleidoscopic respites of throbbing warmth and surprising tenderness. J.R.C.G. (Justin R. Cruz Gallego)'s previous work with Seattle's excellent Dreamdecay may foreground the broad strokes here, but he's pushed things way outward in terms of his sonic palette. Abutting field recordings captured from rodeos off Ajo Way, a stretch of highway that leads one westward out of Tucson Arizona directly into the sun, both acoustic instruments and gleaming walls of synthetic noise are framed in dour and dissonant chord shapes, crackling with overdriven drum mics and seasick waves of distortion. It's homage that plays out like a collage, a dream switching from station to station, a series of dedications broadcast on late night radio. All pin-hole size images from scenes never seen whole, strung together in but one version of complete, all making for a dazzling listen."
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CF 138LP
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LP version. "Ajo Sunshine (pronounced 'Ahh-Ho') is heralded by an alarming horn ensemble, stabbing with the dramatic urgency of a killer's theme in a midnight movie. It's a jarring but appropriate entry point for this brilliantly blasted listen, an array of exquisitely sharp edges punctuated by kaleidoscopic respites of throbbing warmth and surprising tenderness. J.R.C.G. (Justin R. Cruz Gallego)'s previous work with Seattle's excellent Dreamdecay may foreground the broad strokes here, but he's pushed things way outward in terms of his sonic palette. Abutting field recordings captured from rodeos off Ajo Way, a stretch of highway that leads one westward out of Tucson Arizona directly into the sun, both acoustic instruments and gleaming walls of synthetic noise are framed in dour and dissonant chord shapes, crackling with overdriven drum mics and seasick waves of distortion. It's homage that plays out like a collage, a dream switching from station to station, a series of dedications broadcast on late night radio. All pin-hole size images from scenes never seen whole, strung together in but one version of complete, all making for a dazzling listen."
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CF 139LP
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LP version. "Nolan Potter is putting the home-recording freaks to shame. The world had a year of global pandemic to lay out its grand ideas and the sum total of most artists 'quar-riffs' wouldn't push the constraints of a normal band practice (gosh, remember those?). Nolan Potter, in the meantime, has quietly painted a beatific masterpiece that veers from the whimsical to the wigged out, deftly weaving an untamed tapestry of sound all the while archly commenting on the present musician's predicament -- and he did it alone. No drum machine clattering in the background amidst tape hiss and four-track grime here -- this is a fully realized, insanely well played, full on rock record that might even one-up his first album, 2019's excellent Nightmare Forever. The guy's got more chops than a beauticians' college, across a wide array of instruments -- no small feat, and easily overlooked when leaving the lyric sheet and credits on the dining room table. That the songs travel far, wide, up, down, backwards, and gamely spill out over the five-minute mark with exceptionally loose interludes and diversions is just another marvel in this carnival of aural delights -- it's a gem of a record and it's out on Castle Face."
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CF 137CD
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"The same crew as the boundary pulsing improvisation record Bent Arcana has made a trajectory shift and picked up Ben Boye along the path. The aptly-named Moon-Drenched is the second installment from these sessions and keeps a heavy-lidded late night perspective on things as it eases from the somewhat familiar liminal twilight of skittering hues of black-blue and snaking street groove, to fizzing off into the ether in pursuit of lunar prism beams heretofore unseen. The more rhythmically dialed bits here have a lysergic halo of strangeness to them, and the wispy bits between are spun of iridescent gossamer. It sounds like a frizzled message from a future just filthy with guitar hoots echoing off of neon-splattered high rises, oil-slicked waterways and skittering digital beasts. For Castle Face's money this is the strangest slice of this last bunch of John Dwyer and his crew's improvisations."
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CF 137LP
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LP version. "The same crew as the boundary pulsing improvisation record Bent Arcana has made a trajectory shift and picked up Ben Boye along the path. The aptly-named Moon-Drenched is the second installment from these sessions and keeps a heavy-lidded late night perspective on things as it eases from the somewhat familiar liminal twilight of skittering hues of black-blue and snaking street groove, to fizzing off into the ether in pursuit of lunar prism beams heretofore unseen. The more rhythmically dialed bits here have a lysergic halo of strangeness to them, and the wispy bits between are spun of iridescent gossamer. It sounds like a frizzled message from a future just filthy with guitar hoots echoing off of neon-splattered high rises, oil-slicked waterways and skittering digital beasts. For Castle Face's money this is the strangest slice of this last bunch of John Dwyer and his crew's improvisations."
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CF 139CD
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"Nolan Potter is putting the home-recording freaks to shame. The world had a year of global pandemic to lay out its grand ideas and the sum total of most artists 'quar-riffs' wouldn't push the constraints of a normal band practice (gosh, remember those?). Nolan Potter, in the meantime, has quietly painted a beatific masterpiece that veers from the whimsical to the wigged out, deftly weaving an untamed tapestry of sound all the while archly commenting on the present musician's predicament -- and he did it alone. No drum machine clattering in the background amidst tape hiss and four-track grime here -- this is a fully realized, insanely well played, full on rock record that might even one-up his first album, 2019's excellent Nightmare Forever. The guy's got more chops than a beauticians' college, across a wide array of instruments -- no small feat, and easily overlooked when leaving the lyric sheet and credits on the dining room table. That the songs travel far, wide, up, down, backwards, and gamely spill out over the five-minute mark with exceptionally loose interludes and diversions is just another marvel in this carnival of aural delights -- it's a gem of a record and it's out on Castle Face."
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2LP
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CF 080LP
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2021 represses, vinyl only. 2016 release. "Emerging from the distant light is the new double-LP from John Dwyer's Thee Oh Sees -- the first studio recordings to capture the muscular rhythm section of twin drummers Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon with ringer bassist Tim Hellman cracking spines. The groove and bludgeon one has come to expect from the band's live shows is captured seamlessly here -- they go from zero to headsplitter, and on the rare occasions they do let up on the gas a bit, you'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 (including a side-D etching by airbrush-vanart maestro Robert Beatty) and packed in vape-proof goatskin, it's a beast."
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CF 107LP
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2021 repress. "The denizens of Castle Face are not afraid to get their shins dirty mucking around in the stacks and they're well aware of an out-of-press gap of Oh Sees releases right before 2006 when they started the label with Sucks Blood. They're rectifying that and first among these is The Cool Death of Island Raiders, a particularly dusty gem that merits another look. Kicking off the record with what should have been the hit of the summer that year but for the hard C in the title, 'The Gilded Cunt' seems to clearly preface Oh Sees' later psych-skewed pop sensibilities. Chirping birds, gently lapping tempos and the nascent harmonization of Bridgid Dawson and John Dwyer detail a definitive highlight of their early quiet period of the band. The tree hangs heavy with Patrick Mullins' handiwork, manning the musical saw, drums, and an assortment of homemade electronics. It seemed a bit radical to be so quiet about it, but the tunes are total ear-worms among the assorted drones, cut-up bits of tape noise, and mellow front porch-vibes, and the whole thing hangs together in a lovely hand-made way, helped in no small part by Dave Sitek's production (he would later work on Master's Bedroom as well). 'We flew Brigid out a fresh woman and literally sent her home on a plane with a trash bag of her clothes' says Dwyer. Evidently the whole record was accidentally erased at some point right around when the photo on the back of the jacket was taken, which makes it all the more remarkable that the result sounds so casually and confidently careworn."
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CF 109LP
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2021 repress. "Encased in a brown paper wrapping like a forgotten bit of smut from behind the beaded curtain, this unassuming disc is a time-capsule back to John Dwyer's early SF days, janglingly fingerpicked wisps of melody and electronics baking in the all-too anemic sunshine of San Francisco's elusive summer. Like a seashell to the ear, one can hear within it Baker Beach bike ride excursions, holding court and gently harassing passers-by on a Haight street stoop, and midnight rambles with friends from out of town, daring the sun to come up. Somewhere chronologically between the folky whisper of Songs About Death And Dying and the recently reissued Cool Death Of Island Raiders, this one's been vexing to find for way too long and Castle Face has decided to give it 'the treatment'. May it awaken the gentle glow of possibility dappled with the dancing shadow of danger that it stirs around this castle."
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CF 033LP
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2021 represses, vinyl only. 2014 release. "Our lad John P. Dwyer has been lancing eardrums with Thee Oh Sees in an ever-escalating flurry of records for the past six years. Since the release of The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In announced a new loud era (and excepting a few momentary detours into home-baked territory -- 'Dog Poison' and 'Castlemania', for example), Dwyer and company have pummeled a bit harder each time out, cementing their reputation as a live force to be reckoned with and leaving legions sweaty and bruised in the process. Late last year, after years of relentlessly touring the world, the word got out... Dwyer's moving to Los Angeles (fear not, still California!) and Thee Oh Sees are taking a much-needed hiatus with a shifting of gears ahead and a new album on the way. This is that album. Drop was recorded in a banana-ripening warehouse (no joke) with hair-farming studio warlock Chris Woodhouse playing drums; it's also graced with the presence of talented gurus Mikal Cronin, Greer McGettrick and Casafis adding horns and vocals. The result pushes the familiar polarities of the group farther outward than ever before. Opener 'Penetrating Eye' might be the heaviest Oh Sees song yet, 'Transparent World' and 'Put Some Reverb On My Brother' foam with seasick fuzz, and yet the ballads, like the harpsichorded 'King's Nose' and the lush and stately closer 'The Lens,' extend their oeuvre into mellotronic, far-out pop with delicacy and grace. This schizophrenia heralds the man and the band into an unseen future in classic Dwyer fashion -- restless energy harnessed into exquisitely crafted jams, with an emphasis on the pensive and the paranoid in turns."
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2LP
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CF 116LP
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2021 repress, vinyl only. 2019 release. "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 -- the latest Oh Sees, Face Stabber! 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, long jams, bloated solos dribbling down your cavedin 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... fifty 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."
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LP
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CF 030LP
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2021 represses, vinyl only. 2013 release "It's no secret that John Dwyer and Thee Oh Sees put out a ton of stuff. Not just full-lengths -- of which there are many -- but singles, split releases, compilations and even books. The dude cooks in many kitchens, but the sauce is always tasty. Castle Face is proud to continue their tradition of occasionally corralling these rarer gems onto the convenient LP format. For even the most insane Oh Sees collectors, the inclusion of an unreleased, mutated live version of 'Block of Ice' makes this a must-have. To sweeten the deal, the tunes have been gussied up ever-so-slightly to knock you nightly, and the incredible tritone artwork by Shalo P is printed on blinding silver-foil jackets."
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