Week in Pop: Emotional, OHMSLICE, The Sour Notes, Stanley

Post Author: Sjimon Gompers

Ω▽ OHMSLICE

Getting to know OHMSLICE; photographed by Brennan Cavanaugh.

Featured off Ω▽ OHMSLICE’s Imaginator Records album Conduit; Bradford Reed (who created the pencilina, also of Kingg Missile III) with Sister Spit, Poetry Brothel’s Jane LeCroy unveil the visualization-materialization of “Get Matter”. A blend of analog video by Jonas Bers couped with timelapsed & 3D CGI from Dorian LeCroy; a multimedia installation responds to Jane’s poetics, Bradford’s synth percussive pacing, the rumbling drums from Josh Matthews & further elaborates upon the expressive punctuations provided by Daniel Carter’s brass.
Jonas Bers & Dorian LeCroy’s visual treatment of Ω▽ OHMSLICE’s “Get Matter” balances the animated matter of light, digitally rendered images of matter thats mixed with everything from performance footage to images of human-made & naturally occuring entities. Designs of spinning circular light are placed over time-elapsed images of evening as vast images of abstract computer generated terrains are represented as the unknown world of the familiar. The images flicker, shudder & flip positions according to Carter’s tonal pitches & subtle shifts that bounces almost like a tennis ball in reverberation from LeCroy’s delivery & Reed’s own atmospheric arrangements, alterations, treatments & more. The music video for “Get Matter” is an invitation from Ω▽ OHMSLICE for listeners & art creators alike to build upon the momentum & changes that they would like to see manifested in their lives & worlds. This a mantra & moody meditation for our current age & era.
OHMSLICE’s Jane LeCroy introduced us to the “Get Matter” video debut with the following exclusive reflections:

OHMSLICE embarked on the journey of “Get Matter” similarly to most of our creations, in Brooklyn with a casual conversation. I showed up at Bradford’s Gowanus studio, a sun drenched messy nest of creativity, a loft full of musical instruments and recording technology. From a baby grand to Pro Tools, a black spaghetti of chords everywhere culminate in crowded power strips or old wall outlets. The Earth ground prong is often broken off the plugs so they can fit in the old sockets, and many of the instruments are also broken so that their sound will fit in your old ear differently. Bradford greeted me warmly as usual, excited to play, asking, What are you thinking about today, Jane?
I answered, CERN, and the mysteries of matter. We talked briefly about the super-collider in Switzerland and what matters, the poetry inherent in homonyms and where such pondering takes us. Words are machines that we use to look at experience the same way CERN is a machine that we use to look at atoms. We use words to break our experience in to pieces to learn from it and convey it. Same way that music is a machine we use to look at sound. Is everything a machine? I stared at Bradford’s latest creation, the electric modular synth he built that is the rainbow wired heart of OHMSLICE, that Bradford sends his analog beats through from banging on a big old rusty oil drum. It was time to hit record.
We don’t think too hard or make elaborate plans. OHMSLICE is playful and organic, magical. We’re kids over a few decades old, not too interested in convention, preferring to take risks than play it safe. The modular synth demands this of us, it is feral by nature and will not be controlled, only influenced. We join the instrument in a sort of lucid dream state and follow what beauty we detect, encouraging it, occupying the space, making it important, making it significant, making it matter. And that’s how that song was born. The video followed because we wanted it to matter even more. It features vectorscope art by Jonas Bears as well as 3D renderings and time-lapse footage by Dorian LeCroy.


Ω▽ OHMSLICE’s album Conduit is availble now courtesy of Imaginator Records.