OCnotes, “Better Days” (Sub Pop)
A tireless producer of many styles of beat-oriented music, former Stranger Genius nominee OCnotes finally catches the industry break he deserves: a single on Sub Pop. About time! Following on from his appointment as DJ for KEXP’s Sunday Soul program and his joining Ishmael Butler and Erik Blood’s Knife Knights, things are ascending nicely for local multi-instrumentalist Otis Calvin III.
The A-side for this digital single, “Better Days” comes off as a departure for OCnotes—though it’s possible something similar has appeared in his voluminous canon and it simply escaped me. This is the most rock-oriented track I’ve heard by OC, and it’s a trippy beast, to boot. It seems as if he’s trying to top Tame Impala—or fellow Sub Pop artist Morgan Delt—at their own game. The song rides in on an elongated, angelic vocal sample, backward guitar, and slack funk beats not too dissimilar to those which powered the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Eventually, a gnarled, whining guitar riff spirals skyward, sounding like a cross between Mercury Rev’s Grasshopper and Pixies’ Joey Santiago.
The overall vibe of “Better Days” is that of triumph over struggle; there’s a sense of uplift through a chaotic ordeal. And the cool thing is, those elongated, angelic vocals never stop ululating in the background. Nine consecutive listens later, and it’s sounding better every time.
You can obtain “Better Days”/”You Don’t Shampoo Your Hair” here.
