●●●●●
David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors recently referred to the community of independent rock as mostly “miming a codified set of sounds and practices whose significance is inherited rather than discovered reflective of the world as we experience it now.” Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes chimed in to say he feels like today “everything else that gets covered that’s progressive is in other landscapes.”
No one likes to think of two aging rockstars lamenting the state of modern music as having a point, but unfortunately they might be right. Neither Longstreth nor Pecknold are denying that recent indie music has merits. But ask yourself, have any of these recent acts really crafted a new sound that seems separate and alien to anything that came before? Independent rock can still amaze but it seems to rarely excite.
It is within this context that I claim The Ooz to be the most exciting album that has come out of independent rock in nearly a decade, the most notable album to defy the blueprint of what it is to be an indie-rock album whilst still maintaining its heritage.
The whole album in a sense appears to be a contradiction. In one respect it wears its influences very heavily on its sleeve. At times, Archy Marshall, a.k.a. King Krule, sings in a very obvious Joe Strummer growl, strums a very Pixie-esque guitar line and is accompanied by beats that sound like they’re straight off a Portishead record. While none of its inspirations are hard to decipher, these sounds come together like a collage that looks as a whole entirely different from its embodied parts. While someone might be able to hear some Tom Waits or Joe Strummer in a vocal line, nobody in their right mind would mistake this for a Tom Waits or Joe Strummer song. In fact nobody in their right mind would mistake this for anything as there is nothing that sounds quite like The Ooz. I claim The Ooz to be the most exciting album that has come out of independent rock in nearly a decade.
Marshall has stated that the title “The Ooz” represents the disgusting aspects of human nature. The mission of The Ooz, he says, is to try to convey through sound the mood of filing our nails, picking at our ears and scratching ourselves, the dark underbelly of existence. It blends sounds of disgust, anger and depression to create what is one of the bleakest records you’ll hear all year.
Marshall’s harsh growling British accent is a delightful change from the refined vocals that seem in vogue at the moment. Often his mumble can be difficult to decipher leaving us to fill in the gaps. On the song “Dum Suffer” for example, King Krule sings the nonsensical hook “dum suffer” multiple times, but you wouldn’t be to blame if you heard “don’t suffer.” Marshall, it seems, is not just embracing his darker side but also trying to get us to embrace our ooz too. If you check out one album this year, it should be this.
