Listening to the Octopus Project is akin to listening to the
internet. Imagine if, every processing decision—or, well,
whatever happens in the internet—was followed by a corresponding
beep, boop, or snare strike (in perfect harmony, of course). The
Octopus Project somehow tap into this sound, organically merging raw
instruments over meticulous electronic arrangements. At the beginning
of “Wet Gold,” the first song from their latest release, Golden
Beds, hands clap and coalesce with drums and keys before exploding
into a synthetic anthem that carries on throughout the rest of the EP.
Golden Beds is a courageous yelp from a band teetering on the
edge of lo-fi electro-tunes and full-blown indie stardom.
And yet, it was inevitable for the Austin quartet to find themselves
in this situation. Frontman Josh Lambert’s excitement for the latest
tour was palpable; since 2006’s Coachella (where the band won their
chance to perform from a MySpace contest) they’ve been playing shows
and recording at a nonstop pace. As a result, they’ve had many hours to
spend honing a new sound—one most evident on 2007’s Hello,
Avalanche.
“We want to try something new,” Lambert says, while en route to
Baltimore. “Not like a hiphop band or something, but we want to do
something new. I feel like on every record we’re kind of excited to try
different things.”
Different things are evident in each outing, and Golden Beds is no exception. Flexing their pipes, Lambert, Toto Miranda, and Yvonne
Lambert harmonize on the songs “Wet Gold” and “Moon Boil” without
losing any of the charm of the band’s high-energy laptop rock.
“[Singing] is something we’ve always talked about doing, but we
never really felt like the time was absolutely right,” Lambert
explains. “‘Moon Boil’ was written while we were working on Hello,
Avalanche and we felt like it didn’t really fit with the rest of
the record, so we kind of kept it on the back burner.”
The song comes rushing out of the gate with Miranda singing into an
inevitable tempest of crashing symbols and frenzied guitar riffing.
Their live shows not only employ the weirdest of instrumental gadgetry
and laptop trickery, but each member also happens to be multi-talented
and versed in the ways of guitar, bass, and keyboard—enough to
trade instruments mid-song without skipping a beat.
Oh, and did I mention that they’re all proficient in playing the
theremin? The internet would totally sound like a theremin.