Today is the official release date for Octagrape’s Aura Obelisk. Buy it on cd or 2xLP from your favorite local record store. Mailorder it from our online store. Buy it digitally from all the relevant outlets and the band’s bandcamp page where you can stream it in its entirety. Take a listen to the 3rd single “Too Fly” below:
“Ode To A One-Sheet (specifically, said item regarding Octagrape‘s 2xLP Aura Obelisk rec. release of 1/22/2016, on Sounds Familyre Records)”
O come ye & taste of this ‘Grape/
(Or tantrically wait – not too late)./
“Hightropics” & “Moonrides” o’er “Carb[’d] Seven Seas”/
“One Cyclone,” a “Red Shirt” & “‘Licker” of B’s …/
’Tis as “woolly nectar”/
To most sweetly coat/
Yer sore aural throat/
In “Sky Juice” afloat./
An “utmost urgent” unguent/
For psychedeli-salving/
Yer sanguine sonic soul-thing/
With sounds robustly pounding./
Full-blooded, full-bodied, often full-throttle -/
Spasm[-]Ass-tic’ly splendid, in fact, sans twaddle./
No predestined cover, off Electric Warrior/
Nor “Hots On For Nowhere” be there, in form-sorrier.
Yet Swell Maps are welcomed/
In bold efforts taken/
‘Mongst stately New Rock Tunes/
Fresh-hewn & well-shapen./
And 2001 theme?
Duly left alone!/
(“Thus Spake Zarathustra”:
“Yo, Star*Dave: ‘Phone home’!”)/
Guitars like Sizzlean/
Grease-fry’n ‘pon yon’ skillet/
Ripped “riffs,” GOOD-kind “mean” -/
These brahs fuggin’ KILL it!/
— David R. Stampone, “Prof.” of “Punk Rock” “Poetics,” Temple University (seriously), Philadelphia, PA.
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Notes/ Annotations:
— Band/ artist (& album/ song titles), product, website and institution names in bold.
— Verbiage in quotes but not emboldened constitute actual quotes from the Sounds Familyre Records “one-sheet” promo piece of paper/ page that went out with/ was posted for, the new OctaGrape release (Jan. 22, 2016) Aura Obelisk.
— Things in bold and italics are either album or movie titles.
— Line 14: The construction “Spasm[-]Ass-tic’ly” is meant to be read/ spoken as written, in 4 syllables; it refers to the landmark 1993 2xLP Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox & Ass (as rendered most commonly) by San Diego-born/ now Portland OR-/France-based Trumans Water (their sophomore album), of which OctaGrape singer-guitarist Glen Galloway was a key, catalyzing member.
— Line 15: Electric Warrior refers to the celebrated 1971 (sixth) album by T. Rex (which, significantly, includes a “deep cut” called “Monolith”).
— Line 16: “Hots On For Nowhere” refers to a track on the underrated 1976 (seventh) Led Zeppelin album Presence; the LP’s cover art includes a small obelisk-esque object — seen at the center of a table around which a family is seated, etc. — which has been light-heartedly likened, through ensuing years, to an “intergalactic dildo.”
— Line 17: “Swell Maps were an experimental DIY rock group of the 1970s from Birmingham, England, that foreshadowed the birth of post-punk.” — Wikipedia, adequately enough.
— Line 21: The “2001 theme” refers to the 19th century classical music used for the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, as opening fanfare and a recurring theme; famously heard early in movie, after ape-ish pre-historic hominids are seen awaking to find a tall, smooth, perfectly rectangular black monolith/ obelisk standing nearby, and subsequently acquire the evolutionary breakthrough skill of using tools (bones) to hunt, make war, etc.
— Line 23: “Thus Spake Zarathustra” refers to the (translated) English title of the 1896 Richard Strauss tone poem “Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30“ — used so notably in Kubrick’s aforementioned film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
— Line 24: “Star*Dave” is an original coinage which refers not to D*Star of the Free*Stars — a different if not un-related personage — but to two different if at least tangentially related figures, one fictional and one real, respectively (to latter description):
— A) “Dave” is the principal human character in 2001: A Space Odyssey; in the movie, when he is left alone on the spacecraft w/ the sinister computer HAL 9000, said computer is heard (memorably) addressing “Dave” by name; an explanation of the ending of Kubrick’s enduringly brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey is that, uh, “Dave” reverts/ transforms into a “Star-Child” or even “Star-Baby” …
— B) … Is For Bowie! You Got It: Homage City, baby! Even b4 David Bowie dropped, oh, let’s say, The Greatest (Concept?) Alb In Rock History w/ Ziggy Stardust(June 16, 1972) — featuring, besides the title track, such other star-smitten gems as “Star,” “Lady Stardust” &, of course, the 1st “Star” trk on said rec, “Starman” —Bowie had his break-thru/ 1st hit single w/ “Space Oddity.” Of course, the tune title’s a play on Kubrick’s momentous 2001, released in Spring of 1968; the crafty D., tho, waited to release his single until July 11, 1969: 9 days before Humankind 1st Set Foot On Lunar Soil & the world sublimely “freak[ed] out inna ‘Moonage Daydream,’ oh yeah” — so to speak … Travel Well, Star*Sailor DB; RIP.
— Line 24 (cont’d): “Phone home” is a play on the catch-phrase used in the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (it placed #15 on The American Film Institute’s 2005 “AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes”).
— Line 25: “Sizzlean was a cured meat product manufactured throughout the 1970s and 1980s and marketed as a healthier alternative to bacon.” — Wikipedia(again), reasonably enough (again).