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Album 'Waiting For The Sonic Boom' out NOW!
Eleven emotionally saturated tracks of musical depth and imagination from members of legendary Liverpool band Ooberman recorded up Steve's loft.
200 precious CDs have been shipped to indie record stores throughout the UK through Rotodisc (ROTOCD010, distributed through Cargo Records).
Thus spake the Oobtube...
"Ooberon, 'Tis a slice of fabness" - Leeree
"Absolutely brilliant!" - Barra
"A fantastic album, will be hanging around my stereo for, well ever!" - Jeff
"I rank it higher than The Magic Treehouse and Running Girl albums...and that's saying something!" - Retrofuturist
While their stocks last you can also mail order a copy from Townsend Records' online shop here.
WORLDWIDE DIGITAL EXPLOSION!
Digital downloads are available through HMVdigital, Napster, emusic, Ruckus, Musicload and iTunes.
Ooberon Radio Success!
Ooberon's first crackling radio emissions beamed out across the universe from Manchester UK with track one 'Ooh' getting it's debut play on Mark Radcliffe's Radio2 show.
"Rather lovely, actually!" - Mark Radcliffe.
Thanks for that!
And now, on with the biog...
From school beginnings in 1984, Andy and Steve Flett began making and recording pop music on an Amstrad studio 100 four track in their parents garage in Bradford, U.K. Andy played guitar, Steve settled on bass and they joined forces with Dan Popplewell ..boards/vocals to form their first band The Forestry Commission. Initially armed only with ZX Spectrum driven drum machines, the three began a musical arms race, writing and recording increasingly ambitious productions compelled by a mysterious sense of destiny.
As university beckoned, that band drifted apart Andy studied for a degree in astrophysics at Leeds then moved to Birmingham to do a PhD in superconductivity. Dan moved to Liverpool to study philosophy to be joined by Steve who wanted to pursue a career in photography after spending a year at Art College in Bradford.
After completing their studies, the three came together in Liverpool to have a truly serious attempt at making the band a success. Thus, OOBERMAN was formed with the addition of angel voiced Sophia Churney ..boards/vocals and Alan Kelly on drums.
Hard work and good fortune led to various local and national awards (Liverpool Echo Arts Award, The Times Single of the Year), radio play, a major label album (The Magic Treehouse) produced by Stephen Street (Blur, Smiths, Zutons) and a series of high profile support slots and festival appearances.
After a brief period in the pop mainstream, Ooberman continued to produce music and release it through their own label until 2003 when, after recording The Running Girl mini album and the Hey Petrunko LP the band decided to call it a day.
For the previous few years, Steve had been single mindedly developing his own beat-driven techno style under the name Phantom 309. As well as contributing many a b-side remix, he had released the Different Places EP and been on tour as bass player with Pete Wylie and on a world tour with Echo and the Bunnymen.
So when Steve decided to sell his old beat boxes and move to a PC based system, Andy took the opportunity to move his gear into Steve's studio to collaborate on a new album of songs. Steve had also begun to study classics at Liverpool University and as it became apparent he was on course for a first class degree, Andy took over more and more of the new music project until it became his obsession.
OOBERON debut Album WAITING FOR THE SONIC BOOM out now!
Written and home produced by Andy Flett with strong support from Steve Flett throughout, this collection of powerful songs was recorded in the period of reflection following the temporary break up of Ooberman. A feeling of unfinished business propelled the duo along a dazzling learning curve of production and experimentation as they gradually unlocked the secrets of arrangement and instrumentation. Helped along the way with advice and technological input from Dan Popplewell, the album project became a heady obsession for Andy and now the task is complete!
Waiting For The Sonic Boom captures the collision between aspiration and loss, love and betrayal and the urge to escape terrace-housed imprisonment in an urban hell.
Track 1: Ooh (All I Wanted)
A vocoder driven power-pop anthem (reprising the vocal effect used on Ooberman's 'Running Girl') repeating a hypnotic and darkly obsessive refrain as the arrangement builds to release the broken pieces of love gone wrong. Features Jaymie Ireland on drums.
Andy: The title comes from the melody in the chorus and is based on the messy end of relationships where you have to find a way to draw a line and move on. I wrote this song partly from my point of view but mainly from the point of view of a friend who would proclaim dramatically how she was, like, so over whatever current relationship had just ended with the person involved who had broken her heart.
Track 2: National Insurance
Guitar driven indie-rock anthem about soul on the dole and life in a hole.
Andy: This song is about a musician with delusions of grandeur.
Track 3: I Feel Like The Water
A quiet Rhodes piano comedown into a soft beautiful ballad that rises and mutates into an epic.
Steve: I heard Andy demo this for Ooberman and immediately felt moved by its yearning tug on the heartstrings even though it was just a vocal melody and guitar part.
Andy: I recorded this at the zenith of my isolation in the studio. I had the song from a while back and only at that point my life could I capture what I wanted to convey. You never step in the same stream twice so says the proverb and that is like the flow of perception, unfolding timelines and your life plan. The song is introspective and soulfully searching, yet epic with it.
Track 4: Thunder Before Friday
Orchestral and inventive ballad that starts small then grows like a cumulonimbus in the summer heat of what the future may bring.
Andy: I used to live in a place called Selly Oak, in Birmingham. There was a pub called The Brook on the Bristol Road. We'd sit outside the pub and enjoy the summer sun as the wasps danced around our pint glasses. This song captures my memories of English summers so hot you couldn't sleep with thunderstorms breaking out just as the weekend would arrive. As well as wanting to write something rooted in English culture i.e. the weather, I wanted to allude to change both personal and climatic.
Track 5: Spiders Inside Butterflies
Haunting acoustic ballad alluding to loss and the gentle pain of love.
The title comes from a finger picked guitar introduction that was not included on the album mix called Spiders Inside Butterflies which refers to the callous nature of evolution and by extension the callous nature of any supreme being (for you collectors, the music is available as a free download on ooberon.net).
Andy: I've watched loved ones die and I obviously will again so I know what it feels like to say goodbye. I was moved to tears when I was recording this song - deliberately so - searching for the poignant core of emotion is for me the essential part of the artistic process. It takes a lot of time and solitude to get close to the emotional core and being left to my own devices recording in Steve's loft, I had the opportunity to stare not only inwards, but existentially outwards too. No firm answers of course, only questions...such is the lot of the enquiring mind. Meet me for a pint in the Everyman in Liverpool and we can discuss this further ;-)
Track 6: Monsoon Song
A change of mood with an upbeat and jaunty pop song with an eastern theme alluding to a girl ultimately deciding to put her familys' cultural beliefs before her own interests.
Steve: This song sounds good in the car because it's got a strong beat and strong structures, even if it does sound like McFly.
Andy: I had to record this song twice because the hard disk ate my data. I was so displeased. McFly? Hmm, cheers Steve. I wanted to do a bit of power pop, use chunking rock mutes and layer some harmonies so I do see where you are coming from, though I was aiming towards something more jangly, like REM, especially in the chorus.
Track 7: Eye of The Storm
Swirling ballad imagining being shipwrecked in the ocean looking up at the eye of the storm as the stars fade and the next day dawns. Features Alan Kelly on drums.
Andy: We recorded the drums in the old rehearsal room on Dale Street in Liverpool shortly before Alan left. I found the old drum take on the Roland VS-1680 and took the best couple of bars, edited the waveforms and looped them. Steve's fluid bass style really pulls the chorus together and that's Dan playing violin in the drop down after the first chorus.
Track 8: 1000 Miles
60s Liverpool influenced garage rock featuring Jaymie Ireland on drums.
Steve: Andy had a trio of songs he wanted to demo for Ooberman so he, Jaymie and I began rehearsing whenever Dan wasn't living in the rehearsal room. There was a great vibe in the room as we were at last able to rock out a bit after all the office workers on the floors below had gone home.
Andy: Jaymie had just joined the band and was full of energy. We couldn't play at full volume until after 5pm. After that we recorded a couple of takes and this one had the best vibe. Later in Steve's loft, I began overdubbing harmonies, keyboards and played around with the mix.
Track 9: Fox and Crow
Acoustic entry builds to heavy soul anthem warning of the dangers of falling for flattery. Features Jaymie Ireland on drums.
Steve: This was another song we jammed in the rehearsal room after the office workers had gone home in the evening. I like the heavy bass and the way the chorus kicks in.
Andy: It was the middle of a bleak winter and I saw a lonely crow sitting on the branch of a broken tree. The crow made a rasping call, trying to be as eloquent as its form allowed. Too damn right, I thought, thinking of something that I can't really go into here. So I wrote this song. To me, the verses sound like the frosty bare branches of an empty wintry forest while the middle eight lifts off to new heights of tortured self loathing and regret.
Track 10: Twilight Again
Gentle Rhodes piano led interlude alluding to the ancient magic of twilight.
Andy: I wrote this song almost twenty years ago, sitting in my bedroom with my first electric guitar. My Dad asked me why I was sitting in the dark and I told him it was so I couldn't look at where my fingers were on the fretboard. I had just discovered where E minor 9th was with a seventh thrown in and so on. Years later as I was compiling this album I felt drawn back to this song after going camping with Steve and his family. We sat on the ground and watched the stars come out, spotting satellites passing overhead.
I wanted to capture the otherworldly dream-like quality of twilight; a time between day and night when old worlds overlap and something ancient stirs.
Track 11: Some People
Sweeping anthemic ballad with memorable chorus melody closes album in heartfelt style.
Andy: Its about the way we can be so hurtful to the people we are the closest to and yet we are so polite to strangers. It's a twisted form of intimacy and I'm as guilty as the rest. The emotional foundations to this song are rooted in me thinking of my Mum and the truly frightening way my Dad used to treat her after being thrown out of the pub.
Can I have a signed CD please?
 
Yes! Like seeds in the wind, a precious number of signed and numbered copies have been sent to discerning record stores throughout the UK. You could enjoy the autumnal weather and walk to the shops and ask for a copy, or take it easy from the comfort of your wi-fi bubble and mail order a copy from Townsend Records' online shop here.
Digital downloads are available from HMVdigital, Napster, emusic, Ruckus, Musicload and now iTunes.
Mailing list
Join Dan's OOBERMAN mailing list to get instant news of forthcoming OOB events and future releases. Send an email to ooberinfo@ooberman.net to join up.
Why OOBERON?...Well, we wanted a band name with an 'Oober' connection so after staring into the fire chose this name as it reminded us of Oberon, a satellite of Uranus, King of the Faeries etc. Little did we know that the isolationist planet Ooberon already existed in pop culture! Check out Hyperdrive S1E01 about ten minutes in to hear loads of Ooberon references. Thanks Bibs for pointing this out!
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