OXBOW - s&d

I was just listening to "12 Galaxies" the acoustic live record a couple of days ago, so good. I am always a bit surprised how effectively they are able to convey heaviness and menace in an acoustic setting.

The Thin Black Duke being mastered today. This album has been 'coming soon' for ages now but maybe this time we're finally getting somewhere.

https://youtu.be/VBLgUgyMcW0

The Thin Black Duke being mastered today. This album has been 'coming soon' for ages now but maybe this time we're finally getting somewhere.

yeah this record rules

can't wait to hear it
thought this was interesting, them using such a big-time producer for such strange music (wish more underground bands valued production this much)

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/producer-joe-chiccarelli-isnt-just-a-legend-hes-also-the-connection-between-morrissey-u2-and-oxbow

I was going to wait to listen it until my lp arrived but I couldn't wait and streamed it this wknd, a great record.

The impression I got from the new Quietus interview is Chiccarelli wasn't their first choice, they wanted Visconti

Said interview:

http://thequietus.com/articles/22360-oxbow-interview-eugene-s-robinson

I do love this bit:

Eugene S Robinson: I’ve been kinda thinking about this idea that records made early in the careers of people who make music, a lot of the time and especially in the idiom in which we’re working, they’re a product of hysteria. They’re largely akin to somebody rushing in and screaming, ‘Your apartment’s on fire!’ or ‘Your car’s on fire!’ or some variation thereof. Most of the time, if you live life beyond the initial records, in your actual lives, you could functionally say, ‘Take it easy. Things are going to be OK.’ And then they go on to the next record where they try to duplicate that experience of hysteria from the first record. The difference is that if you look at 30 years of record-making, eventually you evolve into a non-hysterical orientation about life – but it’s no less crucial… because it all ends the same fucking way. I don’t find that joyful at all. I don’t find the prospect of it, just because it happens to everybody else – I’d like to recall Yossarian from Catch-22 – how can that possibly make a difference, that it happens to everybody else?

An announcement (via Eugene's FB account):

As promised: a THIN BLACK BOOK announcement.

The plan was this: extremely LIMITED edition of a companion volume to THIN BLACK DUKE, an 80-plus page deep dive treatise. A third would be sold to the people who most immediately backed it, a third would be sold during the European tour and the remaining third would be sold at our soon-to-be announced American shows.

BUT we undersold in countries where English is not the primary language AND we now realize that because of the way we have to tour America (Friday-Saturday-Sunday fly-out jaunts until we cover the entire country), we'd have to warehouse the remainder, which is something specifically WE DO NOT want to do.

SO....the 67 books we have? We will sell. PayPal $25 to Pinko95014 at yahoo dot com ($20 more if you live outside of America).

Orders that actually have shipping addresses? Will get shipped first. And orders will be shipped weekly.

This offer is only good until July 1st, 2017. If the books all sell before then, your money will be refunded. And if you hate PayPal hidden cash, checks and money orders can be sent to CFY, PO Box 19271, Stanford, Ca. 94309.

No stupid questions. Now tell the world.

The book is fantastic; I highly recommend buying one

I just sent in $25... Hope I make the cut!

Yeah the book is very cool. I am glad that in this era of ephemeral digital collections that Oxbow really went all out making a physical artifact.

this album is really something i hope ppl pay attention to it

next in line to say this album fucking rules.

I just missed them play in London cos I was away. They're playing Supersonic in Birmingham in June it seems, but I can't see anyone is gonna put them on again in London then. That can't be right, surely.

Philly show in July! Woo!

agreed, this record is fantastic - had a really good listen this afternoon. friend was saying that live suffered from a lack of the album horns and strings (which obv wasn't a problem for the previous albums).

Saw them live and finally bought the vinyl

This is so amazing sounding

Okay, this live album with Peter Brotzmann is phenomenal.

really looking forward to listening to this. i’ve been caning the narcotic story recently. amazing album.

As a big Oxbow & Brotz fan I am amazed that it is even better than I expected (now if only the physical copies would ship...)

(now if only the physical copies would ship...)

I've emailed the label twice and gotten no response. I'm getting cranky.

Huh, I ordered the CD along with a few other albums through the Trost bandcamp on October 31st and got it about a week or so ago.

Yeah, I didn't order it from Trost, unfortunately — they said Sleeping Giant Glossolalia was putting out a US CD version, so I ordered that one.

As a big Oxbow & Brotz fan I am amazed that it is even better than I expected (now if only the physical copies would ship...)

Long story short I finally got my lp copy last night and it sounds great, still kind of can't believe it exists

"Love's Holiday" out in July
https://oxbowofficial.bandcamp.com/album/loves-holiday-out-7-21-23

New single out today, "Icy White & Crystalline." Sounds like a forgotten DGC band from the 90s. Love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxz6RrzuR9w

Nice, super excited for this.

As a side note, I went to go pre-order this from Ipecac's bandcamp page and thought I'd also grab that Dave Lombardo album. It's sold out on every format already, LP, CD, everything. It came out May 5th - that seems insanely fast. It appears I can get it from Amazon, so whatever, but I'd rather than money go to the label than Bezos. Anyway, I'm seeing that a lot more frequently lately that labels are selling out of things really quickly. The new Blood Ceremony being another example - just released on May 5th and every format (LP and CD) completely sold out on Rise Above's website. Are that many labels just doing miniscule runs these days? Just seems a bad look for a hyped new album to be completely sold out from the source less that two weeks post release.

I guess just a good reminder to make sure you snag something the instant you see a pre-order pop up.

This happens a lot! It’s frustrating.

you gotta preorder before the band even forms

It is super frustrating. I get things like the exclusive, limited vinyl colors getting snatched up right away, but I'm seeing it way too often for literally every physical format. Oh you wanted a copy of that album that came out last week? Too late, you missed it!

I can only imagine how frustrating it has to be for a band...

had a great first listen to Love’s Holiday just now, after prepping by going back through their albums this week (v rewarding). Dead Ahead is a great opener/single, and it’s an amusing approach how after the first two tracks they move p much exclusively into their slow, stygian power mode.

i like the continuing move into melodic ballad trappings, even if a couple of times i had a fleeting sense of more recent nick cave (not a fan). but choral and keyboard set off the muscular torment and pent-up force. it *sounds* great. the group are in v good form and looking forward to seeing them in september.

I love the new album, it is Numinous and Forbidding in all the best ways

yep agreed.

also the track titles are some of the best I've seen in a while. how has no band begun an album with 'Dead Ahead' before

thankfully the song does that title justice

as a means of saying sorry to Fizzles I am getting into their earlier stuff

King Of The Jews is fantastic. Angel is one of the great rock songs maybe

Eugene pls log back into ILX btw, that was fun

King of the Jews is I think my favourite.

you know when they describe a modern album as fire and brimstone because it's kind of noisy, yet kind of trad, and kind of fearsome? yeah well those albums aren't fire and brimstone, this is

https://eugenesrobinson.substack.com/p/the-last-tour-diary-youll-get-out

unclear to me what on the tour triggered this but it sounds like oxbow is over for the foreseeable - eugene has quit.

My reading is that it's more of an intra-band dispute than a "touring sucks when you're over 60" thing, but who knows, honestly?

i think that about sums it up, yes.

xpost I don't think the "I hope the people who need help get the help they need" part at the end could be any more clear

Losing both Oxbow and Shellac in the same yr, two of the bands I looked up to the most, is deflating

Also, def intra-band dispute

Buñuel, Eugene's other band, has an album coming out in the US (finally) this yr on Skin Graft and they are great

Good reminder to listen to the ones I've not heard yet.

My open DM to Eugene: find some mad zoomers and let them be your backing band for an album or two. It'll be wild

I have all the previous Buñuel records and am definitely looking forward to the new one.

I actually emailed Eugene after reading the newsletter; here was the advice I offered:

1) Don't ever tell any more of the story than you just did. No "music journalist" deserves to earn a byline off of your pain, especially not in the current devalued/degraded environment.

2) Don't start another band. Become an itinerant guest star. Show up on other people's records for fun and/or a quick buck. But the music industry's collapsing too (ask me how my micro-indie label's going), so why throw your own money down the sewer? For "Art"?

3) Write more. Fiction especially. It's my observation that "literary" fiction offers the world nothing at all; meanwhile, "genre" fiction is where you'll find serious analysis of the world as it actually exists, tucked in between murders and sex scenes. Read S.A. Cosby (Razorblade Tears, Blacktop Wasteland, All The Sinners Bleed) and Jordan Harper (She Rides Shotgun and The Last King Of California) and you'll see what I mean. There's a lane there that you could slot yourself into pretty easily, especially from overseas. Europeans have a voracious appetite for Americans shit-talking America, in my experience, so a series of crime novels would likely find a sizable audience, even in translation.

All good advice tbh. Hiring some mad zoomers to make some bonkers backing music won't cost much if anything anyway so it isn't even like starting a band in a way

I thought about 'write more' myself as he's clearly a brilliant writer. I'm also certain he's considering it anyway

(as for the merits of literary fiction, this isn't the thread, and what you said is probably in line with Eugene's thinking)

With Oxbow gone, Buñuel has gone from being Eugene's "other band" to his band, period. They've got a great new album coming out on Friday, which I wrote about in this week's BA newsletter.

Oh this is exciting yes

I was really disappointed in the new Buñuel LP, esp after enjoying the the other records, but I finally had a chance to see them live last night and they were just great

Buñuel live have always been rly good. Haven’t heard the new album yet tho. *Did* see someone wearing an Oxbow t-shirt walking past while I was scarfing some lunchtime oysters and wine in Sète recently tho. Almost ran after him.

Eugene is also a fan of Paul Fussell … his writing style is interesting

saw Buñuel last night at the New Cross Inn, a place apparently unchanged since my first ever gig nearly 35 years ago. really great set. an oddly genial Eugene (somewhat zonked on neurofen+ he said), v well constructed - full of excitement, dread, drones and metal riffs, and the pent up violent angers of the universe.

went in somewhat despondent and tired, came out enthusiastic and generally recalibrated. good strong stuff.

Yeah Eugene has had both(?) knees replaced and moved to Marbella.

like you do

well I'm not gonna argue with him about it

Yeah Eugene has had both(?) knees replaced and moved to Marbella.

jiu jitsu training injury i believe… and he had a knee brace on. even said he’d changed his policy on people filming *short* clips to post on IG as long as they tagged his mum Irma.

this after coming off the stage walking (very slowly while singing some menacing lyrics to the drone of the bass) to the back of the crowd and gently but firmly pushing down the phone of someone who had been filming fairly constantly while looking him in the eye.

what a boss. wish I'd gone. was at the NCI only last week