Ohsees
The Cool Death Of Island Raiders

THE REVIEW

John Dwyer's tendency to participate in epoch-making scenarios, albeit neglected and relegated to the dark side of the American underground, is dazzling in its frequency. With Coachwhips, he erected a monument to the sonic filth of such grime that it sounded like nails on cold iron. With other bands, he delved into that boisterous American indie that's now on the lips of every radical chic, from the true or alleged noise blues of early Hospitals, to the sublime absurdity of Pink & Brown's remnants, and even episodes of homosexual techno under the moniker Zeigenbock Kopf. But it's here with the Ohsess that he seems to have truly crossed his personal limits.

"Cool Death Of The Island Raiders" is a masterpiece of charm, swinging between collapse and starburst; little guitars and falsettos sparkling with ephedrine ("The Guilded Cunt"), slow-motion to the world's end ("Turn Offs"), delicate pastiches of back-and-forth support among voices, drones, and tape echoes, as if having to dive further ("Broken Stems"), ballads that make us kneel and gratefully rejoice ("Island Raiders"). The rest is more or less a journey back through an urban forest, domestic yet heavy at the same time, where sounds outweigh words, where melody slides into an ephibic whiteness among alarm bells, syncope, spaces filled with polite feedback, dirt, and post-nuclear hangover trinkets that make the whole more essential than the part, the whole prevailing over the detail, the general atmosphere stronger than a moment (even though all eleven songs are autonomous and rich with ever-new light facets poised over the abyss).

John Dwyer does not strive to appear because he is substance itself, a refined and cunning author at the same time, hyper-creative, chaotic, and an arpeggiator. We need people like him.