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Alpha Relish presents...
Thursday July 17th, 2003
Whelans (Wexford St.)
OXBOW 10:45 – 11:30
Tophi (ex-Gout) 10:00 – 10:30
Easpa Measa 9:15 – 9:45
Adm. 12.50 Doors: 8:00
OXBOW...
The quiet kill off the country road, the time before the time when everything went wrong and the last 16 hours of that great love affair are the seminal beginnings of OXBOW.
Designed to be the last aural will and testament of failed humanity, OXBOW actually garnered listeners from among the ranks of the fucked, with their 1990 release FUCKFEST (cfy/pathological). Followed by KING OF THE JEWS (cfy), THE BALLS IN THE GREAT MEAT GRINDER COLLECTION (pathological), and LET ME BE A WOMAN (brinkman/crippled dick hot wax) recorded by the estimable STEVE ALBINI, SERENADE IN RED (SST/CDHW) also recorded by ALBINI and GIBBS CHAPMAN (FAITH NO MORE, RED HOUSE PAINTERS), and various singles and dance remixes, OXBOW has met with increasing critical acclaim and popular support.
The OXBOW core membership -- DAN ADAMS/bass, GREG DAVIS/drums, EUGENE ROBINSON/voice, and NIKO WENNER/guitars -- has been supplemented by the subtle stylings of LYDIA LUNCH, KLAUS FLOURIDE, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, RICHARD KERN (SONIC YOUTH et al), JON RASKIN from the ROVA SAX QUARTET, and a string section that would make Barry White wince.
Though claiming San Francisco as their hometown, OXBOW played in England in 1990 and toured Europe and Japan in 1995, 1996, 1998, and 1999. OXBOW has also performed in London, Berlin, New York, Vienna, Prague, Portland, Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Gent, and almost every other place people will pay them to hear them play.
View the trailer to Oxbow’s forthcoming documentary ‘Music For Adults’ (Adults only!): http://www.3580.com/oxbow/
* CONFRONTATION IS OXBOW’S THING *
"Suppose I expected something a lot more uptempo than these blood curdling psychos crawling around on all fours, but I can't say I'm at all disappointed... the guitar feed back and rumbles while someone altogether unwell screetches indecipherable lyrics... dangerous and uncompromising. Oxbow are hellbent on clinging to their original vision. Their aim is true, their trajectory deadly..."
"That OXBOW still rattles me. These are some of the most complex and fearfully well-arranged compositions I've ever heard. This OXBOW features a live string quartet, and organist, and faded recordings of big band and sacred music. And then this booming, often vaguely Zeppelin-"Kashmir"-esque rock and Robinson's wailing. The results ring with amazing clarity...songs are full of buried melodies and crushed, detuned progressions that seem to slide off the earth..."
"Live, the San Franciscan band are fronted by a huge body building skin head. And they cause a great deal of discomfort to their audiences' ears. On record they achieve the same end by extremity of dissonant, densely-packed sound... filled with thigh-slapping percussion, orchestral samples."
"As loud as a slaughterhouse and almost as messy, and probably more cathartic than any release you'll hear this year." - Alternative Press Magazine
"(A) daredevil dive into the abyss of the abject." - The Wire
"When OXBOW explode it's with a metaphysical heaviness, drawing in intangible elements, breathing with indescribable import, like a late-period Coltrane freakout" - Careless Talk Costs Lives
"The greatest art rock band in the world." - VICE Magazine
Oxbow latest offering, ‘An Evil Heat’ was released on Neurot Records in February, 2002.
Review of 'An Evil Heat' from Pitchfork.com
Oxbow
An Evil Heat
[Neurot; 2002]
Rating: 8.1
Out of this summer's furnace, their first album in five years. Oxbow, apostles from that small seam of true, gut-wrenching horror. Oxbow, who stink of phlegm and germs and unprotected sex. Oxbow, whose live shows frighten even the few converts who've come to see. Hard music born of slow, corruptive bile from deep down inside, not the tantrums of chugging cheerleaders of doom. They'll put the lie to your grindcore bands right quick.
With titles like "King of the Jews" and "The Balls in the Great Meat Grinder Collection," it's not hard to fathom Oxbow's lack of fame. But you'd think the foursome would at least be known for their frontman-- if only for the hecklers he's beaten down in his day. There are few spectacles like Eugene Robinson, more than six feet of black muscle standing downstage, thighs spread, brief-clad crotch thrusting forward, eyes rolling in holy fervor. The crowd steps back a few feet and eyes the exits.
The two-track opener, "The Snake & The Stick," finds him perched in the pulpit more than ever before. Cursing, shouting, screaming from the background, his cries come like those from the drunks you see stalking down the street, lost in their own private stew of hate. At the same time, he whispers up close with allure: "One Sunday morning, the preacher went a-trawling/ To the House of Fuck, he come a-calling." A raspy voice admits, "I got couch sluts of every stripe, sir, boys and girls and the in-between types," and right afterwards the band busts into an exaltation of Sabbath riffage. Might as well strip your clothes off, burn your Preacher comics and bask in the squalor because Garth Ennis ain't never going to come close to this freaky.
In times past, Oxbow sounded somewhat like labelmates Neurosis, or a spoiled Birthday Party. An Evil Heat cools the fire just enough for a slower burn. The main hooks of these songs seem blues-based, at least at the beginning, as you're reeled in. "Stallkicker" opens with a rough blues crunch, and the cymbal crashes resonate like electric shocks. It even ends with a brief coda of almost pretty guitar picking. But they return to their trademark queasiness-- a sidelong slither between noise-rock and metal-- on "S Bar X," on which former Swan member Jarboe guests. Her low moans circle his high-pitched keens until it all mashes together in a swirl of seething feedback.
Given all the old folktales of forks in the road and deals made at midnight, the whiff of blues here makes sense. Scent-words seem to be the most appropriate; there's an odor of pheromonal aggression that's just tangible on this record, and it alternately sickens and succors. Rarely have I been so thoroughly seduced after an averse reaction, and rarely have I been so driven to get up and thrash around and feel the blood pulse through my veins. "Skin," in particular, grips me until I'm aware of the sad state of my own flesh, what with the brutal whip of the snare and the tale of "the cockhorse, teeth like sugar cubes/ Play the blues, balls hanging/ Between his between, like crab apples... hating his hide, and hiding his hate/ Potentate of the small, and the great."
What wages do you earn after the sins of the first half-hour? The other half: a thirty-two minute (near) instrumental by the name of "Shine(Glimmer)." It builds in buzzing bass drones and dives back down into distortion, endlessly climaxing and clenching up and coming at you again. It's a primal jam, fueled by pure carnal libido, so get together with some inclined bodies and slap skin together. An Evil Heat may not be for everyone, but you're going to keep an open ear-- it's been too long since you've listened to anything this hard. So kneel yourself down now, and look upwards at old Eugene. It's time for your confession. - Christopher Dare
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Also from Alpha Relish:
- Japanese New Music Festival featuring Ruins, Acid Mothers Temple & more!!!
(The Village, 20th of October)
- Melt Banana (Japan) + Daemien Frost + xKnifedx (The Village, 5th of November)
- Circle (Finland) + Support (TBC) (The Village, 27th of November)
Tickets for the above 3 shows are on sale now from Road Records, 16B Fade Street, Dublin 2. Tickets will be available from Freebird, Sound Cellar, Comet, City Discs etc over the coming weeks.
<+ -------------------- +>
Alpha Relish presents...
Thursday July 17th, 2003
Whelans (Wexford St.)
OXBOW 10:45 – 11:30
Tophi (ex-Gout) 10:00 – 10:30
Easpa Measa 9:15 – 9:45
Adm. 12.50 Doors: 8:00
OXBOW...
The quiet kill off the country road, the time before the time when everything went wrong and the last 16 hours of that great love affair are the seminal beginnings of OXBOW.
Designed to be the last aural will and testament of failed humanity, OXBOW actually garnered listeners from among the ranks of the fucked, with their 1990 release FUCKFEST (cfy/pathological). Followed by KING OF THE JEWS (cfy), THE BALLS IN THE GREAT MEAT GRINDER COLLECTION (pathological), and LET ME BE A WOMAN (brinkman/crippled dick hot wax) recorded by the estimable STEVE ALBINI, SERENADE IN RED (SST/CDHW) also recorded by ALBINI and GIBBS CHAPMAN (FAITH NO MORE, RED HOUSE PAINTERS), and various singles and dance remixes, OXBOW has met with increasing critical acclaim and popular support.
The OXBOW core membership -- DAN ADAMS/bass, GREG DAVIS/drums, EUGENE ROBINSON/voice, and NIKO WENNER/guitars -- has been supplemented by the subtle stylings of LYDIA LUNCH, KLAUS FLOURIDE, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, RICHARD KERN (SONIC YOUTH et al), JON RASKIN from the ROVA SAX QUARTET, and a string section that would make Barry White wince.
Though claiming San Francisco as their hometown, OXBOW played in England in 1990 and toured Europe and Japan in 1995, 1996, 1998, and 1999. OXBOW has also performed in London, Berlin, New York, Vienna, Prague, Portland, Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Gent, and almost every other place people will pay them to hear them play.
View the trailer to Oxbow’s forthcoming documentary ‘Music For Adults’ (Adults only!): http://www.3580.com/oxbow/
* CONFRONTATION IS OXBOW’S THING *
"Suppose I expected something a lot more uptempo than these blood curdling psychos crawling around on all fours, but I can't say I'm at all disappointed... the guitar feed back and rumbles while someone altogether unwell screetches indecipherable lyrics... dangerous and uncompromising. Oxbow are hellbent on clinging to their original vision. Their aim is true, their trajectory deadly..."
"That OXBOW still rattles me. These are some of the most complex and fearfully well-arranged compositions I've ever heard. This OXBOW features a live string quartet, and organist, and faded recordings of big band and sacred music. And then this booming, often vaguely Zeppelin-"Kashmir"-esque rock and Robinson's wailing. The results ring with amazing clarity...songs are full of buried melodies and crushed, detuned progressions that seem to slide off the earth..."
"Live, the San Franciscan band are fronted by a huge body building skin head. And they cause a great deal of discomfort to their audiences' ears. On record they achieve the same end by extremity of dissonant, densely-packed sound... filled with thigh-slapping percussion, orchestral samples."
"As loud as a slaughterhouse and almost as messy, and probably more cathartic than any release you'll hear this year." - Alternative Press Magazine
"(A) daredevil dive into the abyss of the abject." - The Wire
"When OXBOW explode it's with a metaphysical heaviness, drawing in intangible elements, breathing with indescribable import, like a late-period Coltrane freakout" - Careless Talk Costs Lives
"The greatest art rock band in the world." - VICE Magazine
Oxbow latest offering, ‘An Evil Heat’ was released on Neurot Records in February, 2002.
Review of 'An Evil Heat' from Pitchfork.com
Oxbow
An Evil Heat
[Neurot; 2002]
Rating: 8.1
Out of this summer's furnace, their first album in five years. Oxbow, apostles from that small seam of true, gut-wrenching horror. Oxbow, who stink of phlegm and germs and unprotected sex. Oxbow, whose live shows frighten even the few converts who've come to see. Hard music born of slow, corruptive bile from deep down inside, not the tantrums of chugging cheerleaders of doom. They'll put the lie to your grindcore bands right quick.
With titles like "King of the Jews" and "The Balls in the Great Meat Grinder Collection," it's not hard to fathom Oxbow's lack of fame. But you'd think the foursome would at least be known for their frontman-- if only for the hecklers he's beaten down in his day. There are few spectacles like Eugene Robinson, more than six feet of black muscle standing downstage, thighs spread, brief-clad crotch thrusting forward, eyes rolling in holy fervor. The crowd steps back a few feet and eyes the exits.
The two-track opener, "The Snake & The Stick," finds him perched in the pulpit more than ever before. Cursing, shouting, screaming from the background, his cries come like those from the drunks you see stalking down the street, lost in their own private stew of hate. At the same time, he whispers up close with allure: "One Sunday morning, the preacher went a-trawling/ To the House of Fuck, he come a-calling." A raspy voice admits, "I got couch sluts of every stripe, sir, boys and girls and the in-between types," and right afterwards the band busts into an exaltation of Sabbath riffage. Might as well strip your clothes off, burn your Preacher comics and bask in the squalor because Garth Ennis ain't never going to come close to this freaky.
In times past, Oxbow sounded somewhat like labelmates Neurosis, or a spoiled Birthday Party. An Evil Heat cools the fire just enough for a slower burn. The main hooks of these songs seem blues-based, at least at the beginning, as you're reeled in. "Stallkicker" opens with a rough blues crunch, and the cymbal crashes resonate like electric shocks. It even ends with a brief coda of almost pretty guitar picking. But they return to their trademark queasiness-- a sidelong slither between noise-rock and metal-- on "S Bar X," on which former Swan member Jarboe guests. Her low moans circle his high-pitched keens until it all mashes together in a swirl of seething feedback.
Given all the old folktales of forks in the road and deals made at midnight, the whiff of blues here makes sense. Scent-words seem to be the most appropriate; there's an odor of pheromonal aggression that's just tangible on this record, and it alternately sickens and succors. Rarely have I been so thoroughly seduced after an averse reaction, and rarely have I been so driven to get up and thrash around and feel the blood pulse through my veins. "Skin," in particular, grips me until I'm aware of the sad state of my own flesh, what with the brutal whip of the snare and the tale of "the cockhorse, teeth like sugar cubes/ Play the blues, balls hanging/ Between his between, like crab apples... hating his hide, and hiding his hate/ Potentate of the small, and the great."
What wages do you earn after the sins of the first half-hour? The other half: a thirty-two minute (near) instrumental by the name of "Shine(Glimmer)." It builds in buzzing bass drones and dives back down into distortion, endlessly climaxing and clenching up and coming at you again. It's a primal jam, fueled by pure carnal libido, so get together with some inclined bodies and slap skin together. An Evil Heat may not be for everyone, but you're going to keep an open ear-- it's been too long since you've listened to anything this hard. So kneel yourself down now, and look upwards at old Eugene. It's time for your confession. - Christopher Dare
<+ -------------------- +>
Also from Alpha Relish:
- Japanese New Music Festival featuring Ruins, Acid Mothers Temple & more!!!
(The Village, 20th of October)
- Melt Banana (Japan) + Daemien Frost + xKnifedx (The Village, 5th of November)
- Circle (Finland) + Support (TBC) (The Village, 27th of November)
Tickets for the above 3 shows are on sale now from Road Records, 16B Fade Street, Dublin 2. Tickets will be available from Freebird, Sound Cellar, Comet, City Discs etc over the coming weeks.
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