Posted in Whathaveyou on June 3rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I guess this is the part where I say it’s been 10 years since Om released Advaitic Songs (review here), and though rumors have persisted of an album being this or that in some stage of done or not, I’ve yet to see anything manifest in concrete, confirmed fashion since 2019’s excellent BBC Radio 1 (review here) live record. And at this point, maybe it’s unreasonable to expect another one to come, right? Maybe in your life you get to make one album like that if you’re lucky enough, and maybe that kind of scope and realization isn’t something that could happen twice. Lightning meet bottle, etc. I don’t know. If it’s a question of their having set a standard by releasing one of the best records of the 2010s — and one that, despite being issued so early in the decade, actually held up for the rest of it — I’d be happy just to hear Al Cisernos‘ Rickenbacker mellow out for 35 or so minutes on some songs. Anything past that is gravy, really.
Om have Fall tour dates announced with Zombi. They’ll be doing the Midwest and West Coast, some shows in Canada. I’d love to see this band again, as I’ve missed chance after chance and it’s been a while by now, but maybe next time. And of course if I hear/see/smell anything about a new full-length, I’ll probably post faster than I can even type, so apologies in advance when everything is spelled wrong.
Dates from socials:
OM Tour
All shows with Zombi
09.08 Oklahoma City OK 89th St. OKC 09.09 Lawrence KS The Bottleneck 09.10 Omaha NE Slowdown 09.12 Des Moines IA Wooly’s 09.15 Chicago IL Thalia Hall 09.16 Milwaukee WI Cactus Club 09.17 Minneapolis MN Fine Line 09.20 Winnipeg MB Canada Pyramid Cabaret 09.22 Saskatoon SK Canada Amigos Cantina 09.23 Edmonton AB Canada The Starlite Room 09.24 Calgary AB Canada Dickens 09.27 Vancouver BC Canada Rickshaw Theatre 09.28 Seattle WA The Crocodile 09.29 Bellingham WA Wild Buffalo 09.30 Tacoma WA Alma Mater 10.01 Portland OR Aladdin Theater 10.03 Berkeley CA The UC Theater 10.04 Felton CA The Felton Music Hall 10.05 Los Angeles CA Lodge Room 10.06 Los Angeles CA Lodge Room 10.07 Solana Beach CA Belly Up Tavern 10.10 Mesa AZ The Nile 10.11 Las Vegas NV Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas 10.12 Salt Lake City UT Metro Music Hall 10.13 Englewood CO The Gothic Theatre 10.15 Albuquerque NM Sister Bar
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 3rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Kind of painful to realize, but by the time Om hit the UK and Europe next Spring, they’ll be coming up on almost a full decade’s remove from their 2012 landmark fifth and most-recent long-player, Advaitic Songs (review here). Of course, founding bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros has hardly been idle in the intervening years — except perhaps for the enforced idleness of this past year-plus — having shifted his focus onto Sleep, but still, 10 years without an Om record is a long time. The band issued the vinyl-only BBC Radio 1 (review here) on Drag City in 2019, and if you didn’t get that, I don’t really have much better advice for you than to do so when/if possible. It’s one of those things you’ll be happy you brought into your domicile.
Om‘s last tour was happening as the COVID lockdowns hit in 2020. They were on the road with Wovenhand, which would’ve been a show to see and kudos to those lucky enough to have done so. Doesn’t seem unreasonable to think North American dates will be announced at some point either before or after this trip abroad, and there’ve been rumors of Om recordings in process for years at this point. I know if that if I was in a position of following-up Advaitic Songs, I’d want to take my time too. I have no doubt whenever their next offering comes, it will find welcome.
Here are dates:
Om 2022 UK & European Tour
05.13 Bergen Norway Landmark 05.14 Oslo Norway Kulturkirken Jakob 05.16 Gothenburg Sweden Pustervik 05.17 Copenhagen Denmark Pumphuset 05.19 Berlin Germany So36 05.20 Leipzig Germany Ut Connewitz 05.22 Athens Greece Gagarin 205 05.25 Brighton UK Chalk 05.26 Bristol UK The Fleece 05.27 Birmingham UK The Crossing 05.28 Glasgow UK SWG3 Galvanisers 05.30 Dublin Ireland Button Factory 05.31 Liverpool UK 24 Kitchen Street 06.01 Manchester UK Gorilla 06.02 Leeds UK Brudenell Social Club 06.03 London UK EartH 06.06 Brussels Belgium Botanique 06.07 Brussels Belgium Botanique 06.08 Essen Germany Zeche Carl 06.09 Hamburg Germany Knust 06.10 Utrecht Netherlands Tivoli 06.13 Munich Germany Feierwerk 06.15 Zurich Switzerland Mascotte 06.16 Bern Switzerland ISC Club 06.19 Lille France L’Aeronef
Posted in Reviews on October 23rd, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Some seven years ago, in 2012, Om issued their fifth full-length, Advaitic Songs (review here), through Drag City and thereby secured a place high among the decade’s best releases. Though founding bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros has split time in the years since between Om and the ongoing reunion of landmark stoner metallers Sleep, the album has continued to hold its audience, and its influence continues to spread to other acts on multiple continents. It was the kind of offering upon which legacies are made, and the new live recording BBC Radio 1 (also Drag City) is a reminder of that, even if only half its inclusions are actually from Advaitic Songs itself. Those songs, “Gethsemane” and “State of Non-Return,” are enough to get the point across on the limited gatefold double-10″ vinyl outing, and paired with “Cremation Ghat I” and “Cremation Ghat II” from 2009’s God is Good (review here) it is stirring and hypnotic in kind, the kind of release that makes you wish it was longer than its all-too-brief 29-minute run.
Om‘s lineup has shifted since Advaitic Songs. While that record marked the introduction of Lichens‘ Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (who had also appeared on God is Good) as a full member handling keys, percussion, vocals, etc., earlier in 2019, Cisneros and longtime drummer Emil Amos (also Grails, Holy Sons, and so on) brought in Tyler Trotter as the third member, and it was this incarnation of the band that recorded BBC Radio 1 at the British Broadcasting Company‘s studio in London’s upscale Maida Vale neighborhood, with its quietly old-money residences, tree-lined city streets and small but welcoming coffee/tea shops. The tracking was done on May 3, which was just a couple weeks before Om toured the Southwest ahead of playing Monolith on the Mesa, and about two months ahead of their Summer 2019 European tour, which included stops at Lake on Fire in Austria and SonicBlast Moledo in Portugal, but if hitting the BBC studio was the only reason Om made the trip abroad, one can hardly fault their logic in doing so. The results are little short of immaculate.
That sounds like hyperbole, and maybe it is, but you have to believe me when I say that this recording of “State of Non-Return” features if not the best then certainly one of the top three bass tones I’ve ever heard. I’m a sucker for bass tone anyway, and Cisneros is a master of low-end warmth, but for the tidal surge kick-in of distortion on the second track here alone, BBC Radio 1 is worth whatever Drag City want to charge for it. I’m dead serious. This isn’t a live release like something captured on someone’s phone at a random show. This is a professionally-recorded, in-studio offering of a band performing their work. It is a true documentation of their sound with album-quality fidelity and live performance. And I’m not going to take away from the dream-state sway beginnings of “Gethsemane” or Amos‘ drumming on “Cremation Ghat I” or the texture Trotter seamlessly weaves into the songs via keyboard throughout, but even on Om‘s earlier albums, when it was just bass/drums/vocals and so each of those elements was all the more showcased, I don’t know if the bass ever sounded so rich. If they put it out as an isolated track on its own — a bonus download or “dubplate” or whatever — I’d buy it happily. I mean it.
Opening with “Gethsemane” leads the way down the path. Its beginning is like a guided breathing exercise to clear the mind, and what unfolds from there in the wash of crash cymbals, the ping of ride, the pop of snare, the softly flowing bassline and the chant-like keyboard ahead of the first verse is duly immersive. Cisneros‘ voice arrives like a pilgrim one might meet in the wilderness, some kind of spiritual seeker who knows the place, can show the way toward safe passage while telling you stories that happen in dimensions most people can’t perceive. So you set off. Amos‘ drums are the footsteps, Trotter‘s keys the ground, and “Gethsemane” is both journey and destination. At 11 minutes, it’s both opener and longest inclusion (immediate points) on BBC Radio 1, and its sense of grace isn’t to be understated, nor the fluidity with which it feeds into “State of Non-Return,” which at 8:22 is two minutes longer than on Advaitic Songs, but still unfurls the aforementioned distortion about 45 seconds into the proceedings. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if they wanted to make the song last another 10 minutes, that’d be welcome as well. If it’s two, okay. I’ll take that.
Though it’s shorter than “Gethsemane” and backed up by “Cremation Ghat I” and “Cremation Ghat II,” “State of Non-Return” is an obvious focal point on BBC Radio 1 for its shift in tone and relative rhythmic push. Even putting aside the glorious rumble of Cisneros‘ making, it radiates energy as delivered here and presents a subtle momentum leading out of the first 10″ and en route to the second, which houses the final two tracks, one per side. “Cremation Ghat I” holds some of the momentum forth in Amos‘ drumming and the winding bassline that accompanies, but its run is brief at 3:51 and mostly instrumental, so the vibe has shifted accordingly, as, one supposes, it would have to. This leads to the drone-backed “Cremation Ghat II,” longer at 5:37, which closes out in perhaps giving some sense of arrival at the place to which the beginning of “Gethsemane” was setting off. Maybe (definitely) that’s putting too simplistic a narrative to it, and maybe the journey and destination are the same thing. I wouldn’t know. Maybe the sense of “going somewhere” is wrong altogether and the point is to be still.
But take from it either way that especially for a live recording, BBC Radio 1 is evocative in a way that allows for these kinds of varying interpretations. Certainly one would expect that the BBC knows what it’s doing in capturing a band playing, but it’s worth emphasizing this isn’t just performance-to-tape. It’s museum-quality. It’s a document of Om in 2019 and, for anyone who may have needed it, an underscore to the effect the band have had on the course of heavy over this decade which, one assumes, will only continue to spread into the next. Advaitic Songs is long since due for a follow-up, but BBC Radio 1 earns its place in Om‘s pantheon through its methodical, patient and serene atmosphere, showcasing Om as a band of singular, unmatched resonance. Recommended.
