Photo by Trevor Hall
Avant rock trio ODD CIRCUS will drop DEUS, the latest EP in their ongoing succession of audio adventures, on August 5th via Good Idea Music.
After operating underground for several years, ODD CIRCUS debuted its first release Lunatic Children in 2019 and soon amassed a cult following. The band re-entered the studio in July 2020 and kicked off the first of a series of releases from these sessions in April 2021 with Mantha — a bold, six-track EP imagining aural visitations from supernatural creatures — followed in June by Arch Nova — a post-apocalyptic-themed release mixing heavy improvisation with more expansive psychedelia. Together the EPs attempt to blaze an original path in the world of improvised music.
With DEUS, the band journeys into the demented world of sociopathy. Comments the band, “Each track captures a character consumed and driven to ruin by their sociopathic vice. We imagine the album as creating a kind of spiritual prison for these lost souls, as they are now forced to reckon with their toxic behavior.”
In advance of the EP’s release, today ODD CIRCUS unleashes a video for first single, “Manipulator,” now playing at Sonic Perspectives. Notes the band, “‘Manipulator’ seeks to capture the essence of perhaps the most pernicious of all the sociopaths. He is cunning and strategic, and the path to his goals are paved with the mental and physical devastation of others. No threat will be left standing.”
Watch ODD CIRCUS’ mind-bending “Manipulator” video at THIS LOCATION.
Compiled from free improvisations performed live in studio over one week in July 2020, with limited overdubs, DEUS was recorded by the band, mixed by Crews Carter and ODD CIRCUS, and mastered by Joseph Carra at Crystal Mastering (Melbourne, Australia) and features cover art by Daniel Vega.
DEUS will be released on all digital platforms. Find preorders at the official ODD CIRCUS Bandcamp page HERE.
DEUS Track Listing:
- Tyrant
- Braggart
- Scoundrel
- Charmer
- Damager
- Deceiver
- Reviler
- Manipulator
ODD CIRCUS explores the suspension of space and time. Forged in improvisation, the band’s music navigates boundary-less sonic terrain that embraces the unknown and welcomes the unique and peculiar. The result is an experimental style of psychedelic art-rock that careens its way into garage, fusion, krautrock, no wave, post-rock, noise, hard psych, and sci-fi prog.
“It’s the kind of thing that fans of Zappa, Mike Patton, Cardiacs, The Residents, etc. are gonna eat up,” wrote BrooklynVegan, “and like all of those artists, ODD CIRCUS really earn the right to be as weird as possible. It’s not that the music isn’t self-indulgent; it’s just that they make self-indulgence sound really fucking awesome.” The Prog Space championed “a bizarre sound that takes you to a quick extraterrestrial adventure,” while PopMatters raved, “The music on the two EPs is absolutely delightful. From piece to piece, bouts of metallic jazz insanity, modulated noises, and wacky synths groove around syncopated drum patterns. They paint a paranoid vision of a part supernatural, part palpable post-apocalyptic world. The most delicious nightmare ever.”
With a slew of future releases on the horizon, the band’s auditory universe is just beginning to flourish. Or as Distorted Sound put it, “ODD CIRCUS is building something unique, that scintillates with creativity and intrigue.”
ODD CIRCUS:
Graham Robertson – saxophones, effects
Partin Whitaker – drums
Crews Carter – bass, effects
http://www.oddcircus.net
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