I'm starting to think the universe or fate or god or whoever or whatever is following my actions closely. In the last retrospective I briefly mentioned Radiohead, and I came to find out after finishing it that they recently started an online archive containing all of their material to date. This includes albums, singles, promo videos, documentaries, outtakes and rarities...the veritable whole shebang. In a past life I was obsessed with Radiohead (my main email address still has their name in it) and this kind of news would have had me climbing up the walls with excitement. True, I am curious to tuck in someday, especially some of the more obscure EPs and singles I've never heard. The important takeaway is that I appreciate how some bands realize their hardcore fanbase can never be satiated. And while Oh Sees may not have their material all available in one place, they do understand that prolificacy and number of releases doesn't always mean flooding the market. Oh Sees consistently surprise us with things like An Odd Entrances and the recent The 12” Synth release, so newer fans might not be aware of some of the older treasures to plunder.
As mentioned in the last retrospective, the Moon Sick EP followed Floating Coffin by a mere three days, coming out on April 19th, 2013...Or did it? The Oh Sees Bandcamp page says it came out on the 19th, but all other information I've found indicates it came out on Record Store Day, which was the 20th. Insert obligatory 4/20 joke here. Anyway, exact release date doesn't matter—the point is, it came out so close to its parent album that it was a huge surprise. Now, sure, it is just four leftover songs from the Floating Coffin sessions, and they definitely wouldn't work if you tried to insert them into the album.* Due to this you might assume it's just scraps that fell off the table for we, the hardcore, to pounce on and devour like we're starving orcs. Yet I think it's a bit dismissive to say they're just four leftover songs. Yes, this EP isn't as coherent and cohesive as the usual full album or a mini album followup like An Odd Entrances—but this isn't necessarily an indication of its overall quality.
In a shocking twist, revisiting the Moon Sick EP so soon after finishing the Floating Coffin retrospective has helped make it clear to me why I don't love that record. There's a hard to explain quality I notice in some the best Oh Sees albums, something I can only describe as a sense of being unhinged, of going for it, of being gonzo and not striving for perfection. By contrast to this EP, even when Floating Coffin does get weird or unhinged, it comes off as still being polished, in control, and orderly. It really does feel as though the 'crazy' stuff was set aside for this EP. Just a thought.
Moon Sick blasts the fuck out of the gate with 'Grown In A Graveyard.' After asking “are we rolling?”, Oh Sees unleash an absolute beast of an opening track, all off-kilter drums and queasy synth sounds and pummeling bass. John Dwyer is in classic form, his vocals swallowed up in the chaos swirling around him as his guitar is absolutely coated in delay and effects, firing off tracer rounds toward the moon. This is followed by 'Sewer Fire', a midtempo rager that splits the difference between krautrock trance, psychedelic noise, and garage rock furor. Listen closely at the end for a snippet of Pink Floyd's 'Money'--why it's there, I have no idea, but it's part of the gonzo spirit, maaaan. While I know it's then-collaborator Lars Finberg handling vocals on 'Sewer Fire', I bet most people, like me, forget this and think it's Dwyer up to this old tricks. If you've never listened to this EP before, you may still have heard 'Humans Be Swayed', a fan favorite that is sometimes played live (if I recall correctly, there's a live performance on YouTube, with Ty Segall on drums, no less!), which to me has always seemed like a modern cousin to Warm Slime's 'I Was Denied' in terms of an ear worm melody/vocal and rollicking energy. We end the proceedings with 'Candy Clock', which is such a strange detour both from Floating Coffin and the previous tracks of the EP that I love it. Between the harpsichord, the viola, the “la la la” vocals, and the whimsical 60s British orchestral psych-folk aesthetic and lyrics, this track is a hidden gem. It's so...perverse putting a track like this at the end to balance the other songs. I adore it; being gonzo doesn't always mean cranking the volume and distortion, after all.
As with other lesser known non-album releases from Oh Sees, Moon Sick is the kind of deep cuts/outtakes release that rewards hungry fans for their persistence and their hunger. Yes, it's only four tracks and yes, it's Floating Coffin leftovers. Yet it speaks to the consistency and quality control of this band to not only not shoehorn these songs onto the parent album where they wouldn't have worked, but also to have the foresight to release them in an all-killer, no-filler EP format. Here they can shine in the sun and not be relegated to a dark cutting room floor somewhere or swallowed up in a singles collection. Moon Sick is a special treat for fans, and I'm excited they keep doing stuff like this to (maybe I'm making an assumption here!) reward the faithful.
*Though if some enterprising person wanted to propose a 'fan edit' that combines the two releases, I'd be ever so curious what they come up with.
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