Odist
Go Bar
Saturday February 28, 2009
 
 
Flagpole didn’t hear a single complaint about their heinous commute: With members having Dacula, Athens and Dalton, GA home addresses Odist is a long distance relationship worth having, and remaining faithful to.  Despite their assignment to the semi-local bin at Wuxtry we’re happy to call the heavily hypnotic power trio, neighbor.  Odist recently celebrated a one-year anniversary knocking around town(s) and the independent release of an impressive self-titled debut EP.  The Athens show this Saturday at Go Bar (with Tuscaloosa-based Baak Gwai) is an early stop on the emerging band’s extensive East Coast spring tour.  We hope to get a postcard from Brooklyn.  So, the challenge of being separated by great distance has neither impeded momentum nor quelled enthusiasm—guitarist Parker Newell, bassist Jason Craig and drummer Sarah Wilson (ex-Winter Sounds, Ski Club) genuinely enjoy developing Odist.
 
For the uninitiated, you’ll find rumbling toms and double bass drum drives, effusive cymbal precision and capable automatic weapon beats augmented by a flurry of synthetic swishes, swoons and blips.  Add subdued, nearly inaudible vocals, sure-handed bass lines and dense, lurid guitar work.  For fans of My Bloody Valentine and Coheed and Cambria searching for progressive, shoegaze jams peppered in metal shavings Odist comes recommended.
 
And we hear being in the band isn’t a bad arrangement either.
 
Artistically, the three-piece came together naturally, without pretense—each player having admired the other’s past work, and quickly forged a deep connection.  “Emotion, I believe, is the core of it all, says Newell over a Terrapin one evening after touring the brewery, adding, “That’s where all the music comes from, that’s where your expression comes from, and where your art and beauty comes from.”  Wilson agrees, recalling the fledgling start, “The first day we jammed together as a band we wrote a song that first day and it was pretty easy actually, it wasn’t difficult at all.  And it was then that we knew, yeah, let’s try to go somewhere with this.  Automatically it was easy to write with Parker and Jason.”  So what’s their secret?  “Well, we all like the same music, and that is a huge—that has a lot to do with who you play with.  I’ve been in bands where we all didn’t necessarily like the same music and that’s when you guys don’t really work well creatively,” shares Wilson.
 
It doesn’t hurt that each player is absolutely comfortable with their instrument.  “We’ve all been playing for a while.  Jason and I have been playing for ten years and I think Parker’s been playing for five or six, so we’re all pretty experienced.  We’re all at the same level musically as well,” says Wilson, who lambasts her kit with meticulous and ferocious aplomb, before adding, “Playing in bands where people aren’t necessarily at your level can be frustrating at times.”  But, as Newell notes, Odist’s exotic, outerspace industrial sound is fueled by more than just a penchant for technical proficiency.  “Technicalities involve mathematics and that just kind of brings that emotion into reality and makes it kind of tangible—it’s like a basic theory of punk rock—yeah these guys aren’t really that good at their instruments, they only know three chords—but they’re going to give those three chords hell!”
 
They definitely know more than three chords, and figuratively speaking, there is harmony.  There’s talk of more touring, recording, possible adding members to the fold in an effort to expand the sound.  So, how will the band determine, what’s next?  “Musicians and bands have to grow or else they become stagnant and stale—as a musician you need to keep things fresh and new.  As far as the direction we’re going, it’s kind of hard to say, you know?  It’s definitely going to be true to our hearts, we’re definitely going to be honest and try to make [music] as comfortable for us to play as possible,” assures Newell.
 
Perhaps we typed in haste when we described the long drives required, so that Odist can exist, as a grueling commute.  When the passengers are excited about the destination (and there’s something to be said about staying excited about band rehearsals) any ride will be a pleasure cruise.  That notion is summed up best by Newell, “And it’s a lot of fun being in this band, you know?  Sarah and I have been in bands where we have practice and it’s like we’re trying to drag a boat over a mountain, you know what I mean?”
 
David Eduardo