Ocosi - [IN]

Here's a neat one I hope you'll enjoy.

Ten years ago, I was running a small independent record label with some friends out of Oshawa called Negative Air Research (or N.A.R.). We had released four CDs & thus far they had all been by people we knew.

I was a complete Mick Harris fanatic at that point & would obsessively visit a now-long-defunct site called Dub Terrorist which focused on bands like Scorn and Techno Animal. Mick Harris himself would regularly post to Dub Terrorist's forum, ranting in full caps about whatever was annoying him.

Well, one day he was going on about how Martin Atkins from Invisible had reneged on releasing something with Ocosi, a band Harris was much enamoured of and who he would go on to record drum loops for...

Posted by MICKHARRIS on September 12, 1998 at 03:35:34:

DONT GET TOO EXCITED ABOUT THE FREQUENCIES RECORDING AS ITS NOT COMING OUT.I DONT SEE THE PIONT IN RELEASING THIS OUT OF DATE DEMO THAT WAS JUST A DEMO.IF IT WAS TO BE RELEASED IT WOULD OF BACK IN 95.THE RECORDING OFFERS NOTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED TO PEOPLE.TIME TO GO FORWARD NOT ASS BACKWARDS LIKE HAS BEEN HAPPENING TO ME.ERALDO LIKED THE RECORDING A DAMN SITE MORE THAT MYSELF SO MAYBE HE CAN DO A FREQUENCIES RECORD ALONE ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC.JOBS AT MACDONALDS LOOK INTERESTING,MINIMUM WAGE WHICH IS A DAMN SITE MORE THAN I EARN FROM THE CRAP IVE TRIED TO DO THE LAST YEARS FOOLING MYSELF AND NOT SUPPORTING MY FAMILY.THE ONLY RECORD THAT WILL COME OUT IS THE PEELSESSIONS AND DUTCH RADIO SHOW AND COMP/HARD TO FIND UNRELESED TRACKS BY SCORN.THE SCRATCH PROJECT IS OFF[FOOLING MYSELF AGAIN THERE]ITS NEVER GONNA HAPPEN SHOULD JUST LEAVE IT TO THE EXPERTS AND SAVE THE LAUGHS AND SLAGS OFFS ITS BOUND TO GET.NO LABEL WANTS MY MUSIC NO MORE SO ITS TIME TO BAIL OUT SAY FUCK OFF TO ALL THOSE THAT WILL NEVER KNOW AND THERES PLENTY OF YOU ON THIS SITE THAT HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE AT ALL YOUR ALL SONICS YOUR EVERYWHERE,ALL BEHIND YOUR FUCKING SHIT COMPUTER SCREENS SEARCHING AND SPOTTING THEN DEBATING ETC ETC ETC,YOU AINT GOT A CLUE YOU AINT PART OF THE PLOT.IVE WASTED YEARS HELPING OTHERS WITH NO COMEBACK IM NOT A BACKRIDER I DONT RIDE BACKS LIKE OTHERS AND ALL THIS CHEAP FAKE WEAK SOUNDING CRAP YOUR ALL UP TO FORGET IT ITS GOING NOWHERE AT ALL.FORGET POSSIBLE INVISIBLE DIDNT SIGN POSSIBLE TO RELEASE THE MUSIC OF POSSIBLE THEY SIGNED IT TO TRY AND GET MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH WITHOUT HAVING TO SIGN AND SUPPORT MJH TO INVISIBLE,WELL THESE STUPID FUCKING CUNTS CAN FORGET THAT THEY ARE SO FUCKING STUPID COME ON HOW SHIT IS INVISIBLE WHERES IT GOING WITH THAT SHITE THEY RELEASE,THEY RIPPED ME OFF ON THE US TOUR PAID ME FUCKING PEANUTS SO MY FAMILY LOST OUT AGAIN THEY WONT PAY ME MY MECHANICALS WHICH IVE ASKED FOR FOR NEARLY 2 YEARS NOW AND THEY THINK MJH WILL RECORD FOR POSSIBLE,THEY ARE FUCKING STUPID THEY AINT GETTING NOTHING FROM ME FULL FUCKING CUNTING BASTARDING TWATING STOP NO CHANCE.IM IN A HUGE FUCKING DEBT OF 11 THOUSAND POUNDS WITH POSSIBLE BECAUSE PHD FUCKED ME UP.IM MEANT TO BE HAPPY AND ACCEPT IT,INVISIBLE SAY MICK WE NEED TO BUILD THE LABEL BEFORE RELEASING NO NAME ARTISTS WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY KNOW I HAVE 2 KILLER ACTS OCOSI AND NOS WAITING BUT NO MARTIN ATKINS TOLD ME THIS WHO ARE THEY WHO KNOWS OF THEM ETC ETC ETC WHAT A TWAT WHAT DOES HE KNOW WHEN HE RELEASES SHITE LIKE MARTIN ATKINS INDUSTRIAL XMAS TWATS LIKE PSYCHIC TV REISSUES OGRE NEW CROC OF CRAP ITS ALL A WASTE.PEOPLE WONDER WHY I LOOSE IT WELL IVE HAD ENOUGH OF IT IT ALL FUCKING SUCKS I CANT EVEN GET A DECENT SLEEP AT NIGHT COZ I FUCKING WORRY SO MUCH.SO FUCK THE FREQUENCIES AND ANY OTHER WEAK ASS CRAP IT AINT HAPPENING AT ALL NO TIME FOR IT FULL STOP.I DONT RIDE BACKS AND I DONT CARE WHO I PISS OFF BECAUSE THERES VERY FEW THAT KNOW,REALLY KNOW.YOU ALL THINK ITS BRIGHT AND FUCKING ROSEY DONT YOU WELL IT FUCKING AINT SO HERES A GOOD OLD RANT FOR YOU CUNTS THAT WILL NEVER KNOW TO SAVE PRINT DO WHATEVER WITH COZ YOU ALL WASTE MY SPACE.AS CAL[SINGER OF DISCHARGE]SAID BACK OF THE CLASSIC SINGLE1980 REALITIES OF WAR THANKS TO NO FUCKER.OUT

Ocosi at this time were Paul Molyneux and Simon Smerdon, two young guys from England - they chopped, demixed & programmed the beats supplied by Harris, & created a great record in the process. This record was called '[IN]'.

Paul and Simon (also in the head-nodding Gator Bait Ten) were similarly obsessive about the music & posted on Dub Terrorist all the time. I wrote them and we struck up a correspondence, they wound up sending me some tapes & everybody at the label's socks were knocked off by their stuff. '[IN]' was too good to go unreleased so - long story short - N.A.R. put it out in 1999 (shortly after which the label folded).

After one more record, Simon Smerdon left Ocosi to start Mothboy; he was to work with Mick Harris again on The Fears & is still active today.

Paul Molyneux continued under the Ocosi moniker - now based in Spain - and was still releasing stuff as of last year.

I'm sure glad to see they're both still doing music.

Here's some reviews of [IN]:

From GM's Canadian stronghold in Oshawa, Ontario, comes this dark hop debut from Britain's Ocosi and their guest Mick Harris. Actually Harris supplied them with beat samples after a joint session was cancelled when Invisible apparently backed off from funding a collaborative release in 1998 (which was much complained about on the late, lamented Dub Terrorist message board). Well, here is a glimpse of what Invisible missed out on, a stripped-down meeting of live funky drumming and atmospheric electronix (similar in ways to Harris' recent collaboration with John Everall).

The duo in Ocosi (recently featured with Mick, SIMM and Everall's Tactile on the EST label's Gone Too Far! compilation) chop and treat Mick's bass drum and snare playing, leaving, in some places, that live-in-the-studio ambience ("Opener [In]" and "Out"). In other tracks, like "Comascene" and "Suck Radius," surreal soundscapes surround the beats like warped space. Ocosi's mood is sparse and industrial, as they lay down a background bed of white noise for "Crave"'s phased breaks, and tweak the analogue synths in an early Cabaret Voltaire-style before the drums' big entry in "Vor-Tec."

[IN] is a fine start for this promising group, who report they have many unused Harris beats for Vol 2.

- Music News Network, Nov. 99

***

[In] is an almost ambient industrial soundscape. Driven by sampled and programmed drum tracks [In] goes nowhere slowly. In fact, the relatively flat line tempo of the 8 tracks is a point of particular interest. Rather than creating inhumanly fast rhythmic textures with the aid of sequencers, the drum patterns are sometimes even slow by primate standards. Combined with ambient synth that mixes various flavors of bass hum and grumble, the effect is one of pulsing, breathing, biotechnological environments.

OCOSI has made an interesting artistic move by creating tracks that are in non-conventional time signatures. The title track, which is 5 beats to the measure, is particularly effective in the sense that its irregularity is smoothly integrated. There is a certain, perhaps intentional, irony in using these odd times to capture the painfully regular rhythms of industrial life. On the other hand, it may simply be that OCASI is not as deeply a part of the machine as their music suggests, or that our machines are becoming more human all the time.

[In] is fascinating and monotonous. I won't be listening to it regularly, but if I ever feel the need to wallow in the despair and angst of modernity, [In] will provide the appropriate soundtrack.

- Joshua Levin, Hollow Ear

And, finally, here is the record itself.

Play it loud --

Ocosi - [IN]