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Aah, the underground. It rarely gets any better than here. This is the musical area where artists no longer care about genres, subcultures, popularity and sounding like their idols. Here is where originality and experimentation are more important than what it looks like or even what format it is recorded on. Here you can find tapes, 7 inches, cd's, mini-discs, floppy-discs and tons of other stuff that makes sound, or better, noise.
Ohmu is a three-piece from Austria that doesn't care what you think about their music. In fact, I don't think they even care what music they make. They just call it 'noise' but there's a lot more to this. Ohmu uses a tremendous amount of instruments, effects and software to create something that can best be described as experimental music. From actual noise over ambient and electronic experiments toward free-jazz, IDM, psychedelica and noise rock, these Austrians do it all.
We received both the CD Hive Mind and the 2014 Demo cassette for review and I decided to treat them together. Both contain a similar, quite unique blend of styles and both are equally enjoyable if you're a fan of boundless experimental music. The track 'Ohmu' opens both releases. Yet, on the tape this a pretty damn good doom rock track; on CD it sounds a lot more electronic. In all, the tape release is a bit darker and heavier than the CD and to me personally, it's a bit better.
The tape is also a tiny bit less experimental and hints towards indie rock, shoegaze and even synthpop. However, don't expect a hit single from these guys by the way. For that all of this sounds way too weird, at least for most people. There are little other ways to describe this than "unpredictable sound manipulation where everything is allowed". It's astonishing how the sound highly differs on both media and this clearly shows a band that constantly evolves.
To conclude, this really is an interesting band that might as well become a pleasant surprise at many stages. Their experimental nature has blessed them with a very original sound. They have released an amazingly brilliant tape and a CD full of weird music experiments. This is underground music at its best, period.
Serge
Ohmu is a three-piece from Austria that doesn't care what you think about their music. In fact, I don't think they even care what music they make. They just call it 'noise' but there's a lot more to this. Ohmu uses a tremendous amount of instruments, effects and software to create something that can best be described as experimental music. From actual noise over ambient and electronic experiments toward free-jazz, IDM, psychedelica and noise rock, these Austrians do it all.
We received both the CD Hive Mind and the 2014 Demo cassette for review and I decided to treat them together. Both contain a similar, quite unique blend of styles and both are equally enjoyable if you're a fan of boundless experimental music. The track 'Ohmu' opens both releases. Yet, on the tape this a pretty damn good doom rock track; on CD it sounds a lot more electronic. In all, the tape release is a bit darker and heavier than the CD and to me personally, it's a bit better.
The tape is also a tiny bit less experimental and hints towards indie rock, shoegaze and even synthpop. However, don't expect a hit single from these guys by the way. For that all of this sounds way too weird, at least for most people. There are little other ways to describe this than "unpredictable sound manipulation where everything is allowed". It's astonishing how the sound highly differs on both media and this clearly shows a band that constantly evolves.
To conclude, this really is an interesting band that might as well become a pleasant surprise at many stages. Their experimental nature has blessed them with a very original sound. They have released an amazingly brilliant tape and a CD full of weird music experiments. This is underground music at its best, period.
Serge
