It is nearly impossible to find any concrete information about this shadowy psychedelic collective, aside from the fact that they first surfaced in Alaska about fourteen years ago and that they are now active in Oakland as both Nommo Ogo and Katabik Soundsystem. How they managed to maintain such a low profile is still more of a mystery, as this collection contains some of the most otherworldly and unique music currently being made.
Record Label Records
The first things that spring to mind when I think of psychedelic music are trippy lyrics, fuzzed-out guitars, hippy/space imagery, and anachronistically employed field recordings. None of those things are here at all: Nommo Ogo is an entirely differently animal than pretty much everyone else currently plying their trade in the outer limits of mind-expansion. Musically, their main influences seem to be synthesizer-based Krautrock, industrial music, noise, and experimental electronic music. Occasionally a simple guitar part will appear to remind listeners that there are actually people playing instruments, but the bulk of the album’s weight is carried by dense thickets of sizzling, swooping synthesizers and lurching mechanized beats. Conceptually, they are much more indebted to H.P. Lovecraft, as they are explicitly attempting to evoke such complicated and nebulous moods as “gnostic sorrow” and “cosmic terror.” That is a pretty tall order to fill, but this deeply sad, unsettling, and alien music hits the mark more often than not.
Nommo Ogo has thus far had a very sparse recording career. They have released a few albums on a handful of various small labels over the years, but they are best known for their live performances and their longstanding involvement in the Pacific Northwest’s singularly outré Autonomous Mutant Festival. That being the case, Across Time And Space is likely to be most peoples’ first exposure to these hooded, shamanic weirdoes. Perhaps sensing that, the band certainly took their time: the seven tracks included here were recorded over a span of five years, then the mixing, overdubbing, and mastering took another two years after that. I’m not sure how much of that time was actually spent working, but this album sounds amazing. Some of the actual compositions are a bit weak and the beats can occasionally be a bit dated and clunky, but there is hardly a single note anywhere that is merely played. Instead, they shimmer, pan, twist, plunge, decay, ooze, and shudder.
I watched a few live videos after first hearing the album, and was a bit disappointed and confused at how cartoonish and bombastic the band can get at times, but these recordings are generally quite the opposite. The tendency towards doom and bluntness is limited largely to the drum machines, which are Nommo Ogo’s clear weakness. While they sometimes work effectively, the beats are very firmly rooted in the late industrial/early IDM time period, which makes the band seem somewhat more dated and earthbound than I think they’d like. Nevertheless, this is frequently a pretty strange and wonderful effort. There are a number of stunning moments strewn all over the album, but the melancholy and ruined-sounding synthesizer outro of “mMoonlane” and the squalls of digitized voices and swirling chaos in “Induction” were the highlights for me. Across Time And Space might be a bit too overwhelming and same-y to digest in one dose, but there is quite a great deal of deranged, damaged brilliance to be found in Nommo Ogo’s vision.
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