My good friend and past musical collaborator who rescued me from a creative malaise-daze and formed the group Omon Ra with me, Daniel Miller, has just released a new cassette single on brand spanking new Halifax label, Craft Singles. The tape is music from his newest project, Omma Cobba. The single is a track called Police Man - a great rock-soul piece, evoking the Rolling Stone's, funky rhythm guitar, and albeit sometimes grungy, vocal harmonies. The recording - which is done in Hi-Fi - complements this band well showcasing the drummer, Dave Cell's, simple but "fits like a glove" drum splashes, opting for shakers and toms instead of cymbals, and bassists Denis Kierans incredibly inventive and groovy basslines. The real star though is Dan's vocals who come across so well in these recordings - lush and melodic. The hooks are undeniable, do your self a favor and check out this track.
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The past two years have easily been the best years of my life. I've made lots of very close friends, traveled lots of ground, and made large leaps artistically. The biggest part of my life for the past two years has easily been my musical project Omon Ra, formed with who would become my closest and best friend, Daniel Miller. I think that our friendship transcends into the recordings and the music and art we created is something that I will cherish for the rest of my life. We moved through many styles from quiet psych-folk, to psych-punk blowouts, to free improvisations and drone worship; we both grew tremendously as people and as musicians.
But alas, for some reason I have moved to a different city. I needed to grow, I was feeling claustrophobic and frustrated within Halifax, the sleepy little coastal town, and I needed to leave. I miss it a lot, I think about going back, but I can't not now, maybe never, who knows. Me and Dan had hopes of keeping the band going, traveling to France in the new year. But due to financial circumstances, aka the difficulty of finding proper employment in Montreal, and the fact that our growing ideas needed to leave the abstract, we began playing and recording with different groups, all with mutual friends however. Dan teamed up with the members of the Ether and Friendly Dimension, to form his new group "OmmaCobba and The East Side Marijuana Band." And I teamed up with fellow east coast ex-pats Matthew Wilson and Chris D'eon, as well as my good friend Emily Robb, to form what I have called (in tribute to Krautrock band Amon Düül II), Omon Ra II. These new formations have yielded new musical directions and the old Omon Ra is no longer. For the mean time we will focus on our respective groups until sometime in the future, when perhaps, hopefully, me and Dan will collaborate again, and who knows how that project will take shape.
We would like to thank all the people that supported that group and hope you will continue to support our new endeavors, as they are both sonic continuations of the creative-embryo that was Omon Ra.
In celebration I have uploaded one of the two, last Omon Ra records we hoped to release, The Spirit of Jerry Garcia Playing the Rolling Stones. This record was recorded over fall to spring last year, it was our longest time spent recording an album. We acquired some new technology when recording and is easily our best sounding most ambitious record. Most of the songs are Daniel's and I would try to do my best to add some tasty licks, keyboard tricks, and harmonies to the wonderful pieces. My only contributions other than the collaborative tracks, were "Children of the Alien Avatar" and "Eurydice". There are many good moments to this record and we arranged it to really fit the flow the music; to help the listener get in the world of the record. This album gives a good idea of where Dan is taking his music with his new group. The art was kindly done by our friend Andrew McCgregor. One of our last shows was a freely improvised collaborative set with Gown, Andrew's project.
Album artwork by Andrew McCgregor aka Gown
Daniel jamming his new project.Photo by Jennica Lounsbury.
Speaking of his new group, Dan kindly sent me a song from their upcoming album, Faster Acid Sun, Burn Burn. There are a lot of bands doing the whole Spacemen 3, krautrock, homage thing right now, but this is easily one of the best I have heard. I have posted the epic title track, clocking in over 12 minutes, which features bass, drums, guitars, chants, clarinets, and saxes. The piece moves through Warlock-esq rock n' roll with Contortions approved horn squeaks and skonks over top, to spacey Cluster-like ambiance, to Boredoms friendly drum jams. This is some very promising music. I understand the record will be available soon with artwork from Ether front-man Luke Corrigan. They are also playing a couple of shows in Halifax back to back in early December, the first on 11th at the Khyber Club with Rich Aucoin, and the 13th at Reflections with the Friendly Dimension. Check out the track!
In the next couple days I will post some more Omon Ra material, please check back! Thanks!
"PC Worship is the music making project of Justin Frye (Teeth Mountain, Gary War) who lives in Brooklyn, NY. This is a collection of recordings made between 2006-09 and represents an era of collective output with many other local musicians. This particular collection was recorded on a TEAC four-track reel-to-reel tape machine, a handheld cassette recorded and various computers. Although Frye spearheads this project, the live show can range from a solo performance to members in the double digits. The sound is all over the board, containing elements of free jazz, grunge, psychedelic punk and pop to create a wash of consonant and disorienting sound." - Insound description of "NYC STONE AGE"
I have been reading The Wire for the last few years. I remember picking it up and then having to pick up my brains off the floor. It quickly became a very important publication for me. I learned so much from this magazine and continue to do so, so it's a very big honor to be reviewed in the Wire, and by Byron Coley nonetheless!
P.S. Check out our good friends Husband and Knife's review as well! Also on Divorce Records.
Thank you too those able to attend the Omon Ra show this past weekend as a part of the PopMontreal Festival. Dan was riding with Mr. James Klassen and their van broke down in Quebec city a day before the show. Seeming hopeless and the that the Spirit of Jerry Garcia had finally left, Daniel and James arrived with 20 minutes to spare before our set! And alas we played, our first show in months and it went off without a hitch!
Thanks to Andy March for putting us on the bill, Chris D'eon and Matt Wilson for playing with us, the Pop Winds for letting us use their space, to all the people that rocked out, and to JMZ for getting to the gig on time!!!
Last winter and spring me and my buddy Troy would get together every now and then and write and record some songs. The whole thing started when Troy mentioned to me he was writing some songs and I, anxious to record and collaborate, asked him if he would like to come to my place and record. Things went well and Troy was happy with the sound and direction, and thus the project took on the name "The Friendly Dimension." The first song we recorded was a Gun Club cover called "House on Highland Hill." The recordings really followed suit after this song, we did a darker more melancholy take on the original song and the following recordings and originals all had this vibe. The recording sessions were very stripped down, usually no more than two acoustic guitar tracks, a shaker for percussion, and usually two vocal tracks with lots of reverb, to give the recordings lots of depth.
Thankfully my friend Brett Wagg offered to release the recordings on his tape label, Campaign for Infinity. You can listen to all the tracks minus the Gun Club track at the WFMU Free Music Archive. I will hopefully have some available at the Omon Ra show for PopMontreal and at the Divorce Records Table at the record fair. I'll post details on this as it approaches, for now just take a look at the pictures and have a listen!
Weird krautrock-tribal-dronoise-jam in 26mins of straight sound. Daniel Miller, Chris D'eon, Devon Welsh (The Pop Winds); percussion and vox. Zachary Fairbrother fuzzwahtar and vox made up this version of Omon Ra. Be sure to check us out at PopMontreal this year for something completely different than this performance. We be playing at "Le Cagibi" on Thursday October 1st, with Play Guitar and Fall Horsie as a part of the Youth Club Records showcase, Whooo! We'll be on stage at 10pm.
Filmed by Austin Milne
The other bands that played with us were Dirty Beaches and Ultrathin
Zach lives in Philadelphia, with is wife Christina and their dog, Snowflake. He plays in a band called Ghösh.
He is originally from Nova Scotia.
Email me at zacharyfairbrother@gmail.com
