The Octopus Project - Hello, Avalanche
[Peek-A-Boo]

Austin , Texas trio The Octopus Project are widely regarded as one of the success stories of the last SXSW Festival. There must be a market for such sounds Stateside, as their cartoonish, loop infused instrumental sound comes across like a superficial version of Trans AM, overdosing on happy pills.

“Hello, Avalanche” sticks to a formula deviating from the zany synthesizer melodies, rapid electro beats, quirky FX and huge, multi-tracked drums only on brief occasions. The majority of the tracks run like this, some hit the nail square on the head, most don’t though.

Most notable of the hits is “Mmaj”, simply because the trio shifts focus. Maybe they ran out of happy pills when recording this, but its Kraftwerkian beats, sinister synth backdrop and bouncing melody is rather good. It’s the sort of thing that you’d expect to hear at a hip warehouse party or an exclusive, so cool-it-hurts club night.

“Truck” (watch the video) hits the mark, despite the irritating and incessant Casio keyboard melody, simply because the sheer force of the mountain-sized drums and cranked up guitar distortion is fantastic. “Ghost Moves” is similar as the relentless percussion tries in vain to destroy the banks of guitar.

But such tracks are few and far between. “Bees Bein' Struggling” is the sort of stadium rock sound that Bono and pals made their millions from. Let’s be honest, no-one needs to hear that sort of thing these days. “Queen”, meanwhile, tacks some vocals on but doesn’t go anywhere, except to give me horrible nightmares of The Human League (didn’t Kurt Cobain kill that sort of music?).

It is difficult to make it through “Hello, Avalanche” without pause, such is the relentless intensity of tracks like “An Evening With Rthrtha”, “Black Blizzard/Red Umbrella” and “Exploding Sunhouse”. It seems The Octopus Project don’t deal in subtlety; they are far happier ploughing the same limited field time and time again. The press release here emphasizes the point that they use a Theremin frequently. If this is to score points for innovation, then whoever wrote it is sadly deluded. A Theremin is not innovative in this day and age, not when the likes of Portishead and Air have been using them for years.

Maybe they are a hoot live, but frankly I would suggest you check out a band on our doorstep, that does the electro/instrumental thing brilliantly. They are called Kling Klang, four teens from Liverpool that make amazing Kraftwerk Vs Black Sabbath sounds; check then out! As for the Octopus Project, do I detect a whiff of novelty act?

Track Listing:

01. Snow Tip Cap Mountain
02. Truck
03. Bees Bein' Strugglin'
04. An Evening With Rthrtha
05. Black Blizzard/Red Umbrella
06. Upmann
07. Mmaj
08. I Saw The Bright Shinies (free MP3)
09. Ghost Moves
10. Vanishing Lessons
11. Exploding Snowhorse
12. Loud Murmuring
13. Queen