Photo by Trevor Hall
Progressive Rock Journal is currently hosting the new video for “Scoundrel,” the latest single from Washington, DC/Florida-based avant/jazz-infused instrumental trio, ODD CIRCUS. The track precedes the band’s impending DEUS EP, nearing August release through Good Idea Music.
Embodied by saxophonist Graham Robertson, drummer Partin Whitaker, and bassist Crews Carter, 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.
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.
With DEUS, the third installment of this trilogy of releases, ODD CIRCUS journeys into the demented world of sociopathy with eight new movements. The record’s third cut “Scoundrel” is the latest to be issued into the public, the band writing with it, ” The ‘Scoundrel’ is a mercenary without conscience. Whether it’s for a quick buck or a petty thrill, his willingness to feed destruction and chaos knows no bounds. This track completes the EP’s opening trilogy of pieces that we imagine looking into some sinister spaces of the human psyche. In contrast to the dark fantasy worlds that inspired Mantha and Arch Nova, the theme of this release finds us dealing with real-world monsters—sociopathic humans fueled by their egos and unmoved by human suffering.”
The new video for “Scoundrel” makes its exclusive debut through a feature hosted at Progressive Rock Journal alongside an interview with the band.
Delve into the latest ODD CIRCUS madness and scope the feature and the “Scoundrel” video at Progressive Rock Journal RIGHT HERE.
DEUS will be released August 5th through all digital platforms. Find preorders at Bandcamp HERE and watch the previously issued “Manipulator” video HERE.
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.” ProgSpace championed “a bizarre sound that takes you to a quick extraterrestrial adventure,” while PopMatters raved, “… 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.”
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