17 dots is the (un)official Emusic.com employee blog. Over the past year, the blog’s readership seems to have grown a ton. Nowadays, a mention on 17dots can mean a ton of downloads (and $$$) for the lucky band that impresses its writers.
Today, Yancey Strickler writes:
In five years, the Octopus Project have gone from an Austin oddball instrumental trio to A Band With Buzz. The buzz was built on the back of their live show — which, damnit, I still have yet to see — and they’ve regularly become That Opening Band people end up liking more than the headliner, the festival-stealer, the one to watch. When their excellent first album, Identification Parade, dropped in 2002, such a growth seemed nigh on impossible, but the new one, Hello, Avalanche (10/9), makes continued success seems assured.
Octopus Project play rock-fused electronic music that’s somewhere between Tortoise, Trans Am, Midwest Product, Giorgio Moroder, Colleen and maybe even Eric Johnson. They like keyboards, Theremins and organs, and heavy 4/4 beats that don’t quite swing enough to warrant hip-hop or big beat sampling, but are close. Honestly, it can border on being clinical at times — pristine is their bag — so it will never be your favorite record and they’ll never be your favorite band, but it sounds good, and they don’t demand much more than that.
I really hope the this next record continues the onward and upward arc for my pals in the OP. I have got to get my hands on it.
hype: octopus project at 17 dots
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