Artist Fri Jul 24 2009

A Quick Q&A With The Octopus Project

By Michelle Meywes

The Octopus Project are self-described "collectors of sounds" and their new EP, Golden Beds, is a collection of five songs, each experimenting in different genres. With a couple of tracks coming from their debut album and a subscription-only 7" from last year, Golden Beds begins with the shoegaze tune, "Wet Gold" and immediately switches into rockin guitar and drums on "Moon Boil." The EP conludes with "Half a Nice Day," a lo-fi twee instrumental with cutsey keyboards, but the most compelling song is "Rorol," a streamy avant-garde play with a Siren's call. They utilize the fascinating theremin (an electronic instrument played by without contact from the player, just moving the hands near its two antennas) to create the eerie sound. You can stream the entire EP at Peek-A-Boo Records' website.

MP3: "Wet Gold"

The Octopus Project plays tomorrow night at Bottom Lounge, but I had a chance to catch up with band member Josh Lambert for a quick Q&A beforehand:

Gapers Block:Transmission: Your new EP pulls from a lot of different genres and sounds, where do you draw your influences from?

Josh Lambert: We all listen to a million things, and our influences are pretty scattered. Driving around in the van all day, you get pretty tired of the same old stuff, so it's incredibly exciting to keep finding new things. Lately, some of the stuff that's come over the stereo -- Terry Riley, Dee D. Jackson, Francois de Roubaix, Broadcast, The Breeders, a Dublab podcast...

GB: The Octopus Project is an unusual name, where did that come from?

JL: The name comes from a phone conversation I had with a friend while trying to name another band that we were all in. My friend and I each would say a word, and the combination of the two would make up the potential band names. He didn't like "The Octopus Project," but we kept it in the back of our minds and decided to use it for our own band.

GB: Chicago is just the second stop on this month-long North American tour. Is this your first headlining tour?

JL: This isn't the first or longest headlining tour, but things keep getting more exciting every time we head out! It seems like more and more folks come out each tour, and that's a pretty great feeling. We went out for three months straight a while back, and things can get pretty soul crushing after a while. One month seems like a piece of cake!

GB: How are you feeling going into the tour? I saw that you guys already had some van trouble before getting to your first date in St. Louis!

JL: Excited, definitely! We're all great friends, so it's always fun to head out together! The van trouble stuff was pretty annoying, though... Last night, someone demolished one of the windows in our van, so we had to spend most of the day taking care of that. But, it could have been worse. Our van was stolen on our first tour.

GB: For those who haven't seen your live show, what can they expect in the way of your "visual music"?

JL: In February, we played a couple of shows at a movie theater in Austin where we performed some completely new music to a bunch of old short films. Initially, when we booked this tour, we thought we'd have time to play the "Visual Music" set in a few cities, but unfortunately there just wasn't time. Hopefully, we'll get to take the show out on tour sometime. However, we do get pretty crazy with the projections and whatnot at normal shows, so rest assured, things should be super fun!

Show starts at 8pm, Saturday, July 25. 1375 W. Lake St. Tickets are $10 ($13 day of show). 18+