The last Electric Octopus studio offering was Smile (review here), released in Jan. 2019. For a band of the Belfast trio’s improvisatory ilk, that’s practically a lifetime ago, and even though they’ve had two live albums out since then — the most recent being July 2019’s Live at the Kinky Star Round 2, they still acknowledge that Inclinations arrives after what they call a “hiatus.” For most bands, it would be a quick turnaround from one LP to the next — not to mention those live records — but again, Electric Octopus aren’t most bands. Their ongoing project is based around improv jamming, freeform exploration of the creative, resulting in flowing, sometimes sprawling excursions of vibe, and that’s certainly the case with Inclinations, which brings together six separate pieces and amasses a total runtime of well over two hours.

This is, of course, done purely for a digital format. Electric Octopus have done plenty of physical releases before — they recently sold out of another pressing of 2016’s This is Our Culture — but for something like Inclinations, the digital format ends up becoming part of the experience. As guitarist/flutist Tyrell Black, bassist Dale Hughes (who also fills in on guitar when Black moves to flute and also produces) and drummer Guy Hetherington took to Attic Studios in Belfast in Nov. 2020, they brought a camera with them and streamed some part of the recording process live.

The resulting video also ran about two hours and 20 minutes — though of course the total output of Inclinations would’ve taken longer — and in addition to their playing, flute and all, they chatted to those watching and sort of milled about as one might in a relaxed studio setting. Whether or not anything they played at the time made it on the record, or if that was just a rehearsal and the tracking was done later, I don’t know, but it’s a crucial showcase of the ethic with which Electric Octopus operates generally, pre- or post-hiatus. Their output has been and remains distinguished by its honesty.

In aesthetic terms, that translates to a certain amount of rawness. Sure, there are echo effects and fuzz and swirls and all that fun stuff, but to listen to the tinny, biting snare at the of the jazz-flutey “2” (13:23) or the twisting leads in the first half of “1” (21:22) leading into the funkier, bass-popping midsection, and even by the time the louder stretch kicks in sometime around the 16-minute mark you’re still struck by the abidingly languid feel of what’s taking place. Electric Octopus are unflinchingly organic in sound and style.

Their explorations don’t attempt to be anything they aren’t — they’re not pushing for any sort of theatricality or anything like that — and even when the guitar, and now flute, gets showy, they might back that up with laughter you can hear come through the mics in the recording. They’re having fun playing music. It meanders, hiccups, stretches out and contracts. One member might switch tempo ahead of the others to lead them in a different direction. Every now and again, the whole thing might seem like it’s going to fall apart. And maybe it will. The point is that’s okay too, because if that’s what the jam needs to be then that’s what it’s going to be. Like few others, Electric Octopus seem able to let themselves go and let the music they’re making together guide them through wherever it’s going.

Sometimes it’s just going. To wit, “3” is runs just over 27 minutes of flute and drums. Is this going to be everyone’s cup of tea? No it is not. But it ends and “4” (18:19) picks up with the same laughter as the band move naturally onto the next jam, which flows a little easier in that conversation between Black and Hetherington, until finally in “5” — which is an album unto itself at 32:54 — as Hughes and Hetherington hold down the central rhythm, Black swaps back and forth between guitar and flute and pulls together a narrative of cosmic jazz in the process, evoking something interstellar without ever losing sense of that studio space.

It should go without saying that by the time Electric Octopus get to that point, a given listener is either going to be on board for the ride or not. This is, after all, a kind of sonic extremity. Not in the extreme-metal sense, where it’s about hyper-aggression or blastbeats, etc., but there’s a sense of limits-pushing that comes through in Inclinations just the same as the band dig further and further into the heart of their creative processes. “5” devolves into a stretch of drum-maintained noodling before it’s a half-hour in, and picks up for a funky minute or two before a dreamier ending, but one way or the other, what you’re hearing there is just the band messing around with music. It’s not songwriting and it’s not supposed to be. It’s that moment, as it happened. A genuine document of what was going on right then.

That’s part of what makes it so interesting that they potentially recorded part of the album while live streaming, since it bridges that gap between what’s a live album and what’s an album recorded live, while introducing another layer to the conceptual moment-captured intention of the band. “6” rounds out Inclinations at 18:04 with flute and guitar intertwining, giving the storyline of the day — afternoon, evening, whatever it might have been — a fitting ending as those two sides are brought together for a last psychedelic jaunt. And if you’ve taken the trip with them, consciously listening for changes and twists and lapses and bursts, then the manner in which they wrap the proceedings should make sense, but even if “6” becomes the stuff of drifted-attention background listening, I don’t think that’s necessarily against Electric Octopus‘ purposes. They do what they do, regardless of what one might make of it.

Willful sonic escape is an idea easier to conceive than execute. Try too hard and you’re undone before you start. Electric Octopus hit that balance just right on Inclinations, and though the runtime is well beyond what one might consider “manageable,” well, you’ve got a whole lifetime to get caught up, so what the hell?

Electric Octopus, Inclinations (2021)

Electric Octopus on Thee Facebooks

Electric Octopus on Instagram

Electric Octopus on Bandcamp

Tags: Belfast, Electric Octopus, Electric Octopus Inclinations, Inclinations, North Ireland, UK, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2021 at 6:39 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.