Lonely
Ghosts is the brainchild of Tom Denney
(guitarist and co-vocal extraordinaire in indie noise kids Help
She Can’t Swim). During a quiet summer off from action,
Tom disappeared into his room with a laptop, a mess of guitars and keyboards
and a CD of drum samples, only to emerge eight weeks later as
avant-pop experimentalist Lonely Ghosts. Exploring more pop,
electro and acoustic influences than Help She Can’t Swim, Lonely
Ghosts is an eclectic amalgamation of sounds all held together
by his love for a pure ‘pop’ tune.
Discography:
OIB
Split Volume 1 feat –
The Tumbledown Estate – Voodoo Wave
Lonely Ghosts – Predictions
Munch Munch – I See Sexy Dead People
Gay Against You – Wall Wizards Part Two
Released
30th July 2007 OIB003 4 Tracks, 7”, £4.00
OIB Split Volume 1. Each
volume comes with four different covers each designed by the bands themselves,
as well as band badges.
In
the cold winder months of 2006 the OIB collective were
all gathered around the open fire discussing our spring schedule and
how we are going to document all this creativity going on around
us. Then a bright spark suggested we release a series
of split 7 inch records, that way we could provide an outlet
not only for the more-established acts to experiment more widely but
also a well-deserved platform for the lesser-known talent. So we did.
And
this, my OIB enthusiasts, is VOLUME 1.
Over
the next 12 months we will be releasing a further four 7”
split records culminating in a vinyl boxset and CD compilation in late
2008.
Lonely Ghosts – Don’t Get Lost or Hurt
8 Tracks
CD
/ Download OIB004
£6.50
OIB Records July 28th / Stores August 11th
Following
on from his debut single release ‘Prediction for the New Year’,
Lonely Ghosts releases his debut mini-album ‘Don’t
Get Lost or Hurt’ on CD and Download featuring
8 new tracks recorded with Justin Callaway (the producer of the Help
She Can’t Swim album ‘The Death of Nightlife’).
Musically broader and more personal than his previous output in Help
She Can’t Swim, ‘Don’t Get Lost or Hurt’
sees demanding electro beats and casio keys rubbing shoulders with classical
instruments, sweeping string sounds, and forgotten tape noise.
*OIB
Records webstore exclusive:
The first 150 copies of the album come with a limited edition
set of 4 Lonely Ghosts badges designed by Tom Denney and friends.
Based
out of an attic in the midlands and armed with an arsenal of home-made
instruments and iBooks, Mewgatz,
named after a child’s mispronunciation (or is that misconception)
of music, makes delicate yet damaging electronica.
Turning his electronic graveyard into a circuit-bending sanctuary, Mewgatz
strips bare everything from 80s Casios to keytars and kids toys creating
lo-fidelity introspective electronic ballads drenched in raw,
passionate, and vulnerable emotion.
When playing live
Mewgatz is a wonder to behold. Beats, melody, bass and vocals are all
masterfully spun together into a delicately psychotic show of
electronic malfunction, and due to the randomised nature of
circuit-bending every show is unique as the track you hear on one specific
night will never to be heard the same way again.
Discography:
Mewgatz
– Underfelt
Released 23rd July 2007
10”
6 Tracks OIB002
£6.00
Constructed
around the brain of a £3 Yamaha keyboard and an 80's keytar, Mewgatz
debut ‘Underfelt’
EP is 30 minutes of dark and harrowing basement pop. Paying homage to
his fascination with original keyboard presets and demo songs, Mewgatz
fuses glitching preset bossanova beats with delicate guitar chord progressions
and tender untrained vocals, schizophrenically remixing popular contemporary
tracks until they’re bent out of all recognition. These are lo-fidelity
electronic ballads drenched in raw, passionate, and vulnerable emotion,
a true testament to his quest for melodic chaos, to find that void between
human fragility and robotic malfunction where unpredictability and stability
collide.
Pope
Joan
are a four-piece avant-pop band based out of Brighton,
England. They create intricate blasts of Fugazi and Gang of Four
inspired spiky post-punk utilising ambient walls of processed
guitar noise, furious drum lines and quirky 8-bit synth
keyboards, all of which are underpinned by an incredibly
demanding pop sensibility. If Bloc Party or the Futureheads got
political and rocked a lot harder then this is what they’d sound
like!
“Brighton
boys Pope Joan are a fantastic and quirky proposition indeed”
- NME
Discography:
Pope
Joan - Hot Water, Lines and Rickety Machines OIB
Records August 25th / Stores September 8th
CD / Download 8 Tracks OIB006 £6.50
*OIB
Records webstore exclusive: First 150 copies come with a
limited edition remix CD including remixes by Lonely Ghosts /
Mewgatz / The Tumbledown Estate / My Device / La Fuzer / and many more!
Click
here to download the
albums lead track ‘No TV’
(Right
Click and choose 'Save
Target As')
Don’t
forget to check out the official Pope Joan MySpace
and facebook
The
Tumbledown Estate is a one-man avant-pop
explosion, orchestrated by the indie-surf eccentric Jim Morrison (no,
not that one). Sounding frantic, passionate and off
the wall one moment and chock full of over powering
pop goodness the next, the Tumbledown Estate come on like Stephen
Merritt and Of Montreal jamming out Blur tunes with the Bronx, if you
can imagine such a thing! We’ve never truly understood the warped
mind of the Tumbledown Estate, but if we did it probably wouldn’t
be as much fun.
Discography:
OIB
Split Volume 1 feat –
The Tumbledown Estate – Voodoo Wave
Lonely Ghosts – Predictions
Munch Munch – I See Sexy Dead People
Gay Against You – Wall Wizards Part Two
Released
30th July 2007 OIB003 4 Tracks, 7”, £4.00
OIB
Split Volume 1. Each volume comes with four different covers
each designed by the bands themselves, as well as band badges.
Casiotone
for the Painfully Alone
is the musical alias of 30 year old American film school drop-out Owen
Ashworth. Ashworth began his intricate ventures into abstract
emotional music in 1997 after he realized that song-making
was a far more cost-effective means of storytelling than film-making.
To date, he has produced 4 CFTPA album, released through Tomlab,
that have defined a hybrid strain of raw, emotional and very
homemade synth pop, this is instantly recognizable as his own.
Claustrophobic two-minute character studies shuddered with reverbed
beats, blown-out chords and simple but infectious melodies,
all layered beneath Ashworth’s bittersweet lyrical odes to love
lost.
Discography:
Casiotone
for the Painfully Alone – Town Topic
out now via oibrecords.com, in stores worldwide
May 5th
7”
4 Tracks OIB005
£3.50
Town
Topic is the soundtrack EP for the American independent
film Stay The Same Never Change by the critically acclaimed
New York / Los Angeles artist Laurel Nakadate. Bathed in the blinding
light and sticky heat of Kansas City’s summer, Stay The Same
Never Change utalises both amateur and first-time actors to create
a fictional account of everyday lives and a portrait of a real place.
It’s an unsettling coming-of-age story delivered through the real-life
experiences of youth in the American Midwest.
Buy Online!
CLEAR
VINYL
BLACK
VINYL
Casiotone
for the Painfully Alone – STSNC
Instrumentals
Released by PIAPTK
7”
10 Tracks PIAPTK025
£3.50
Random
coloured vinyl only release that is the counterpart to our OIB Records
released ‘Town Topic EP’.
Together they make up the soundtrack to the Laurel Nakadate film ‘Stay
The Same Never Change’. This 7” was released by the
cult vinyl-only Olympia Washington label ‘People in a Position
to Know’. Limited to just 300
copies worldwide, ‘STSNC
Instrumentals’ is a 10 track long instrumental
record.
Check our store
page for deals on purchasing both 7” releases together.
To hear more Casiotone
for the Painfully Alone head over to his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/cftpa
Arriving
just in time to save your weekend, My
Device
are a frantic and energetic power-trio out of Brighton who make controlled
chaos full of grinding guitars, frenzied drums and thick pounding bass.
Its pure indie-disco for the alternative kids that
while maintaining a fun, danceable pop angle, wrap it up in multi-genre
influenced freak outs and walls of fuzz and feedback.
Discography:
My
Device – Eat Lead/I Was Brave Today
Transparent Purple 7”
3 Tracks OIB001
£3.00
On February 26th 2007 My Device are unleashing their highly anticipated
and Radio 1 endorsed double A-side 7” single ‘Eat
Lead/I Was Brave Today’, their first record since Nervous
System. ‘Eat Lead’ is 3 minutes of pure disjointed
pop magic, full of yelps, hooks and infectious beats that will never
fail to lift you up and get you moving.
ORDER
'EAT LEAD' NOW!
(UK
PRICES ONLY, for REST OF WORLD
see STORE PAGE)
Limited
to just 500 hand numbered copies the 7” comes on beautiful transparent
purple vinyl with hand drawn labels all individually drawn and personalized
by the band themselves. The CD format of the single is released via
the Shifty Disco label.
Shield
Your Eyes
are a heavily blues influenced post-rock band from Guildford, England
featuring Toby Hayes on vocals and bass, the singer from the sadly now
defunct Meet Me In St. Louis, Stef Ketteringham on guitar
and vocals and Eddy on drums. While influenced by Godspeed You
Black Emperor!, Slint, and Zepplin,
Shield Your Eyes manage to make a sound which is totally their own, due
in part to having one of the greatest guitarists we’ve ever
seen! Shield Your Eyes are without a doubt one of the most demanding
and exciting bands on the British live circuit at the moment. Needless
to say we’re incredibly proud to be working with them at this early
stage of their career.
Discography:
Shield
Your Eyes – Sound
The Alarm / Chantal Brown
Due Oct '08 via oibrecords.com
and stores throughout Europe
7”
2 Tracks OIB011
£TBA
In October 2008 OIB Records will be releasing the new
Shield Your Eyes 7” single ‘Sound
The Alarm / Chantal Brown’. Contrary to their
earlier recordings both tracks are vocal. However, as with their early
recordings both tracks fucking rule! The
pressing will be limited to just 200 copies
so I recommend pre-ordering this one if you want to stand any chance
of getting hold of a copy. There will be no repress!
Toby and Stef from Shield Your Eyes also run their
own label called Run For Your Life. They have a MySpace here: www.myspace.com/wearerunningforourlives.
Go there, buy stuff!
It was incredibly
apparent from the early demos we received that Pseudo
Nippon
was something very special indeed. Making mad-capped Japanese inspired
hardcore J-pop, Pseudo Nippon is making music beyond anything we’ve
ever heard in the electonica field. Imagine if Gay Against You or Squarepusher
grew up in Japan, watched Manga all day long and only ate lucky charms,
or as Pseudo Nippon himself describes his music “pop with pochinko
and little beat make yes, eating in colourful”…..quite!
Discography:
Pseudo
Nippon - Edamame Freakout
Due
Oct '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB012
£TBA
The debut Pseudo Nippon
EP release ‘Edamame Freakout’
is four tracks of mad-capped Japanese inspired hardcore electro J-pop.
Set to be one of the true gems in the OIB Records crown, this is one
of the most exciting releases we’ve ever done. Limited to just
200 copies worldwide with no repress
this 7” is going to be one beauty, cosmic, constellation surprise
that you won’t want to miss!
Best
Fwends
are two musical idiot savants from Austin Texas who make spazzy
heavily punk-influenced electro-anti-pop, recorded during their
most severe periods of sleep deprivation using a cheap computer and
anything else that’s lying around. Following the “we don’t
need a stage” ethic of The Death Set, Lightning Bolt and the Coachwhips,
Best Fwends can now be found in basements throughout the world wearing
nothing but their underwear and yelling through megaphones at unsuspecting
teenagers.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 3 feat.Lovvers, Knyfe Hyts, Best Fwends, The
Death Set
Due
Nov '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB010
£TBA
Following on from
last years ‘Alphabetically Arranged’ album on Moshi
Moshi comes the new demented punk masterpiece ‘Hail’
by Best Fwends. Their
cover art for the split 7” is made up of old metal fonts (a prize
if you can get them all), our personal favourite is the use of the Fear
Factory logo for the ‘f’ of fwends, amazing!
Volume 3 of our limited
edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies with reversible
gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges. The
series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl boxset
and CD compilation.
Recently
described by Fused magazine as “two subterranean creatures
dressed in primary school P.E. kits, complete with charcoal-stained
eyes and badly-concealed erections”, Gay
Against You
are the enthusiastic, messy and overly friendly duo of Lachlann
Rattray and Joe Howe, who inhabit the
middle ground between Cyndi Lauper and the Locust. Part of
the post-punk-happy-hardcore electro movement made famous by DJ Scotch
Egg, Adaadat, and the Wrong Music collectives, GvsY make aggressive
spaz-core electronic party music that’s confrontational,
demanding, and very, very fun. One of the most hardworking
bands on the circuit, in the year and a half since they formed, GvsY
have extensively toured with Lightning Bolt, Coughs, Park Attack, Esquilax,
Shitmat, Misty’s Big Adventure, Volcano, Help She Can’t
Swim, DJ Scotch Egg, Noxagt, and Shitdisco amongst others.
Discography:
OIB
Split Volume 1 feat –
The Tumbledown Estate – Voodoo Wave
Lonely Ghosts – Predictions
Munch Munch – I See Sexy Dead People
Gay Against You – Wall Wizards Part Two
Released
30th July 2007 OIB003 4 Tracks, 7”, £4.00
OIB
Split Volume 1. Each volume comes with four different covers
each designed by the bands themselves, as well as band badges.
Munch
Munch duo Tom Carrell and Richard Manber
met in Bristol and instantly bonded over a mutual love of maple and
pecan crunch and the shared appreciation of the Lighthouse Family. They
write songs on a laptop using whatever instruments they find lying around,
including casios, Yamahas, glockenspiels, and ukuleles. Live, they enlist
the help of friends Jack and Sarah, “creating something
bolted together by a dyslexic Ikea enthusiast building a pop wardrobe.
That or they’ve learned music from scribbled descriptions pushed
under a cell door” (Venue Magazine).
Discography:
OIB
Split Volume 1 feat –
The Tumbledown Estate – Voodoo Wave
Lonely Ghosts – Predictions
Munch Munch – I See Sexy Dead People
Gay Against You – Wall Wizards Part Two
Released
30th July 2007 OIB003 4 Tracks, 7”, £4.00
OIB
Split Volume 1. Each volume comes with four different covers
each designed by the bands themselves, as well as band badges.
Half-handed
Cloud,
a name loosely taken from an occurrence in the Old Testament, is an
interesting phenomenon. John Ringhofer, the man behind the namesake,
is as joyful and frugal as his music. An economical thinker, Ringhofer
prefers the subway over a taxicab, is a recycler of plastic, a compulsive
note-taker, and a habitual optimist. He doodles in the margins of paperbacks,
carries a couple different coloured pens, and continues to use an antiquated
CD walkman. When not on tour solo, as the trombonist for Sufjan
Stevens' Illinoisemakers, or as the occasional bassist for
Danielson, he lives in Berkeley California and works
as a part-time custodian. His complex and artistic music encapsulates
his struggle to make sense of his life. In Half-handed Cloud this is
expressed as an all-consuming search for God. Half-handed Cloud is able
to ensconce complicated theological concepts into playful avant-pop
songs without condescending to his subject or to his listener.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 2 feat.SJ Esau, Half-handed Cloud, Kopek, Suburban
Kids with Biblical Names
Due
Oct '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB007
£TBA
Marking his first
release since the ‘Winding Currents on a Spool’
EP in 2007, ‘When Overwhelmed
With Dread’ is Half-handed
Cloud at his absolute finest. Continuing his religious
exploration through pop-music John Ringhofer aka Half-handed Cloud offers
up a musically complex and joyful avant-pop track that is as though-provoking
as it is exciting.
Volume
2 of our limited edition
split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies with reversible gatefold
sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges. The series
will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl boxset and
CD compilation.
Kopek
are an inspired post-rock collective from Brighton
England, orchestrated by Marcus Hamblett. Musically Kopek are a delicate
and mesmerising band that blend the percusive ideals of Tortoise with
the intricate and textural guitar harmonies of Earth and the electronic
creativeness of Matmos. Live Kopek fluctuate between solo shows comprising
multi-layered guitars and drum lines, to full live shows with drums,
clarinets, violins and flutes, all the time beautifully balanced against
Marcus’ progressive and hallowed yet mesmerising vocal.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 2 feat.SJ Esau, Half-handed Cloud, Kopek, Suburban
Kids with Biblical Names
Due
Oct '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB007
£TBA
Following the debut
self-released ‘Lost at Sea EP’, Kopek
release ‘The Way You Are’,
a heart-warming two minute pop masterpiece. It’s a personal whispered
love note that’s beautifully brought to life through minimal clarinet,
flute, sunny-day guitar plucking and drums lines.
Volume
2 of our limited edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies
with reversible gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges.
The series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl
boxset and CD compilation.
During the writing process
for the eagerly awaited new Ex Models album, Zach and
Shahin ended up inadvertently writing a bunch of gnarly post-stoner-rock
jams. Deciding that they weren’t quite right for Ex Models, Zach
and Shahin teamed up with their old buddies from Pterodactyl
and Oneida to form the more pure-rock band Knyfe
Hyts. Too good to be purely a ‘side-project’
Knyfe Hyts is now a fully-fledged rock behemoth and is currently tearing
up stages throughout the US, including a short US tour with Deerhunter.
While heavily influenced by the classic rock bands of yore Knyfe Hyts
are certainly no ironic ‘cheese metal’ band, they’ve
managed to take the driving and demanding guitar style sensibilities
of classic metal and stoner rock bands and infused them with the demandingly
hypnotic rhythmic edge that the Ex Models are so rightly famous for.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 3 feat.Lovvers, Knyfe Hyts, Best Fwends, The
Death Set
Due
Nov '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB010
£TBA
Building upon the
themes of their early recordings which are heavily over-driven and distorted
messes of brilliance, their new recording of ‘Hyts
of Summer’ for OIB Split Series Volume 3
takes Knyfe Hyts to a
whole new level as they offer up their most accessible and exciting
recording to date. The clarity of the recording is way beyond anything
they’re offered before, it’s
two minutes of scuzzed out guitars and falsetto vocals that quickly
builds into an aggressive psych-rock freak-out.
Volume
3 of our limited edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies
with reversible gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges.
The series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl
boxset and CD compilation.
*PRE-ORDER
COMING SEPTEMBER 2008*
You can check out
more Knyfe Hyts for consumption at their official MySpace page www.myspace.com/knyfehyts
Hailing from Nottingham
England,
Lovvers
are a bratish scuzzed up lo-fi dance-punk 4-piece that sound like the
indie disco of your dreams, had the Strokes not fucked it all up 6 years
ago. Imagine the Butthole Surfers jamming with the Minutemen! Sold?!
Thought so. And I didn’t even need to tell you that the band features
the singer from the seminal UK post-metal band The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg…
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 3 feat.Lovvers, Knyfe Hyts, Best Fwends, The
Death Set
Due
Nov '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB010
£TBA
Just when you thought
you had the OIB Records split series sussed out we go and throw out
2 minutes of searing punk-noise courtesy of the Midlands finest Lovvers.
Breaking from our routine slightly ‘Boys
Club / Vox Pop’ is technically two songs
in one. Its two minutes of bratish and demanding lo-fi danceable punk
that sounds like the Butthole Surfers jamming with the Minutemen!
Volume
3 of our limited edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies
with reversible gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges.
The series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl
boxset and CD compilation.
Hailing from Bristol
SJ
Esau was
the first proper UK signing to the seminal US avant-rap label Anticon.
His style is a patchwork of mashed-genres, from hip-hop to folk, all
fused together through multi-layered instruments and his distinctive
vocal delivery. SJ Esau is one of those rare artists that you could
call an ‘innovator’, the diversity and development in his
music is astonishing. He manages to pack in a whole host of different
ideas without ever drawing you away from his essentially quaint recordings.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 2 feat.SJ Esau, Half-handed Cloud, Kopek, Suburban
Kids with Biblical Names
Due
Oct '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB007
£TBA
Hot off the heels
of his second album proper for Anticon comes the new SJ
Esau recording ‘Part
of a Diagram’. Now we’ve been fans
of SJ Esau for years but when Sam Wisternoff aka SJ Esau told us “it’s
more rock than my usual stuff” we certainly weren’t
prepared for this! In just three and a
half minutes SJ Esau delivers driving guitar riffs, hypnotic drum rhythms,
mutli-layed off-kilter chanting, delicate piano, and his trade-mark
humble vocals. It’s the sound of a true originator.
Volume
2 of our limited edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies
with reversible gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges.
The series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl
boxset and CD compilation.
Named after a lyric from
the track ‘people’ by the Silver Jews,
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names
are a twee electro-pop outfit that couldn’t be
from anywhere else but Sweden! Their playful and extremely catchy pop
music caught the ears of Sonic Magazine in early 2004 who subsequently
put out their debut release as part of a Sonic compilation. Soon after
that they signed to Labrador Records, who in 2005 released the critically
acclaimed album ‘#3’. Still working on the follow-up album
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names are taking a quick break to release
their new track ‘God Save Roger
Nichols’ via OIB Records.
Discography:
OIB
Split Series Volume 2 feat.SJ Esau, Half-handed Cloud, Kopek, Suburban
Kids with Biblical Names
Due
Oct '08 via oibrecords.com and stores throughout Europe
7”
4 Tracks OIB007
£TBA
After a way too
long hiatus, Sweden’s finest electro-twee-pop outfit Suburban
Kids With Biblical Names are back with the 4 minute
pop opus ‘God Save Roger Nichols’.
Its pure Suburban Kids as you know and love them, delicate keys, xylophones,
progressive drum loops, perfect guitar riffs, and those infectious and
upfront vocals that get stuck in your head for days. A
sure fire indie-disco floor filler!
Volume
2 of our limited edition split 7” series. Limited to 450 copies
with reversible gatefold sleeve, lyric sheet and one-inch badges.
The series will culminate in 2009 with a series comprehensive vinyl
boxset and CD compilation.
