BAND OF THE WEEK: Obiat
Obiat offer a mesmerising blend of heavy psychedelics, raw emotion and labyrinthine prog on this much-welcomed return to activity.
It all depends on your age, and also on the extent to which you paid proper attention to the London scene of sludgy, proggy post-metal stuff that was so rich in the first decade of this century that you could be forgiven for overlooking the occasional band, but yeah, depending on those factors, Obiat will either be a very welcome return or an exciting discovery of a new band. In fact, even if you knew them from before and enjoyed any of their previous works, namely ‘Accidentally Making Enemies’ (2002), ‘Emotionally Driven Disturbulence’ (2005) or ‘Eye Tree Pi’ (2009), this will more or less feel like a new band all the same. Not only has over a decade passed while they spent some time on hiatus, members dedicating themselves to other projects and naturally becoming different people and musicians, but the band also features a crucial new member in vocalist Sean Cooper. That particular post is already an especially sensitive one, but - not taking anything away from their former singer Laz, mind you, who was similarly great but in an entirely different style - Sean is one of those people who can give a piece of music an entirely different personality with his uniquely characteristic approach, and he helps turn their new album ‘Indian Ocean’ into something quite otherworldly indeed. Whether channeling dredg’s Gavin Hayes in the quietly epic ‘Beware The North Star’, counterpointing the crushing riffage of ‘Sea Burial’ with frail-sounding and very emotional singing, or just shapeshifting his way through massive opener ‘Ulysses’, a sonic rollercoaster of dense highs and sensitive lows, he is definitely a highlight of the new Obiat. It helps that the melodies he is singing are remarkable, reaching Alice In Chains-esque levels often, but they wouldn’t be the same if sung by a lesser performer. I mean, check out this song I just mentioned, which was one of the advance singles:
Right? So, it’s obvious that we’re quite a long way away from those early days over two decades ago, when guitarist Raf Reutt formed the band in Poland, where he’s originally from. While their early material already showed a band unafraid to stray from the obvious and a very personal approach to songwriting, Obiat are showing with this new album a kind of solidity and confidence that really only comes with maturity. For all its unusual mix of things, the quirky instrumentation extras (have I mentioned that? The bamboo flutes? The brass section?), the doom-laden riffs, the post-rockey sort of way of building atmospheres, the underlying psychedelia, not to mention the typically spot-on job Chris Fielding did of making it sound velvety and forceful at the same time, all of them high points, in the end it’s really the wonderful dynamics that elevate ‘Indian Ocean’ into something quite special. Their mastery of the loud/quiet duality is second to none, they have a knack for knowing when a song needs to grab you by the neck or when it just needs to whisper from afar. Because of that, despite the near-hour (59:39) of the album and the overall sizeable length of the songs, nothing drags on, nothing feels laborious or out of place. And hey, they do awesome videos too. Look:
In the interview that you can read beneath with Raf, he tells us “we think any fans of riffs, hard-hitting drums, groovy rhythm sections with a bit of psychedelia and powerful/soulful vocals will dig ‘Indian Ocean’,” so, to sum up, pretty much all of you reading this, I assume. And yeah, he’s right. Go hear for yourself next Monday, July 4th, when ‘Indian Ocean’ is officially self-released by the band (all useful links are below). Enjoy the chat with Raf!
Obiat has been around for a while, maybe longer than most people realise. Could you summarise for us the first years of the band, which was even founded in Poland to begin with?
Raf: The concept of Obiat was conceived back in 1998 in Poland where I am originally from (I have a dual nationality). Back then I was playing in a local thrash metal band and a crust grindcore band, while working in an independent record store. I was lucky to have access to hundreds of albums and meeting other music nerds on a daily basis. I was also into dub music, Sleep, Kyuss and early Orange Goblin, and I met Adam (Cichocki, the drummer). I knew I wanted to start a stoner band! We had few rehearsals as an instrumental three-piece, and shortly after I moved to London. Adam joined me. We put an advert in that famous second hand record store in Notting Hill (not sure if its still there) and that’s how we met Laz (the original singer). I have to give credit to Laz, as it was his “larger than life” personality that helped us become what we are today. He was “the devil’s mouth”. ;-) Shouting about Obiat, networking, organising gigs, all that. Thanks to Laz, we met John Mitchell (Kino, It Bites, Lonely Robot) and recorded our debut in his Outhouse Studios in Reading. The rest is our own little history…
After your 2009 album, not much was heard from you guys, at least not discographically speaking. Was there a cause for this relative silence?
Raf: It was the start of people moving around/away and line-up changes naturally caused it to go on hiatus. We didn’t plan it. At that time we already had Alex (bass) and Neil (drums) playing with Obiat for few years. We already had families and some hard life choices to make. Neil moved back up North, Alex moved to Australia and Laz was back and forth to Hungary. I was the only one left in London. Between the four of us we had to deal with loss, debts, our children’s needs. In other words, just an ordinary adult life scenario, haha.
As well as having been a member of the wonderful The Osiris Club, you did a Hung On Horns album in this meantime (which was really cool, I might add!), can we expect anything else from this band? How would you describe that project, and how does it relate to Obiat?
Raf: I joined The Osiris Club around 2014 if I remember correctly (I am no longer with them, I left before the last album). With Obiat members all over the world, I missed playing music. I tried to find a new line-up and we actually played a gig with Obiat in London in 2013, with Laz travelling from Hungary, but it was not sustainable, so with Marc Tondeur on drums, we decided to reform Obiat with a new singer. It was then that we found Sean, or I should say he found us, responding to an ad. We started playing as Obiat again (2014) Marc, Sean and I. It did not feel right though. All three of us realised that we are actually a different band and it would only be fair to change the name and start afresh. That’s how Hung On Horns was born (I am glad you liked it). At the same time, I was playing with The Osiris Club and we needed a new vocalist and a keyboard player. I asked Sean and the Marc and they kindly agreed to help. So Hung On Horns ended up being part of The Osiris Club. We are all connected! HOH was meant to be more modern proggy.sounding at the time. I would love to record another album and I hope we will one day.
How did you decide to spring back to activity with Obiat, and what were the first steps towards the new album? Did you have any goals, or any image in your mind of how you wanted it to be?
Raf: After a few years with HOH and TOC, I thought it would be great if we could record just one song with the old Obiat line-up (Alex, Neil and Laz), just for the sake of old times. I think we missed that vibe. We entered a new era of working remotely, with Alex in Australia, Neil in North England and myself in London. We clicked immediately. We started sharing ideas, sending riffs and beats back and forth and one song ended up being a whole album. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for Laz in Hungary. We really wanted to do it together but life had different plans for us. After postponing it for over a year we decided to ask Sean to step in. Just like he had done before.
How would you compare ‘Indian Ocean’ to that first decade of existence of the band? How different are you sonicwise, what do the new band members bring that changes the overall picture, that sort of thing? Sean in particular helps give the music a very distinct personality with his voice, in my opinion.
Raf: Thank you! We would like to think the sound is more immediate, harder-hitting. I hope we got better with songwriting, constantly adding variety, whilst keeping an underlying/recognisable style. This time all of us were involved in the creative process equally, Alex and I bringing riffs and structures to the table, Neil helping with arrangements and constantly evolving beats. And then there is Sean! A very fragile and spiritual individual who works in mysterious ways. We provided the instrumental version of the album and he added his magic.
You’ve really assembled a winning team around the band – Andrew Prestige and Roland Scriver/Familiar Ink [you like The Devil’s Mouth’s logos and our goat, dear reader? That’s Roland’s!] for the visuals, Chris Fielding making it sound awesome... With all these people involved and with this care for detail that you guys are showing, what expectations do you have for the reception this record will have? What kind of audience do you think you can appeal too nowadays?
Raf: First of all, those guys are great at what they do, and we'd like to thank them, as they helped us make this better than we could ever imagine. Chris worked on the ‘Eye Tree Pi’ album, so it was an obvious choice for us. We liked Andy’s and Roland’s work they did for other bands and the connections with The Osiris Club, it all made sense and we are lucky they agreed to help us out. As for the reception this record will have, well we have had some very flattering feedback from some very respectable people and this has blown our minds already (thank you José! :-)). The two singles seemed to have gone down well, so we hope that the people who enjoyed those songs will also dig the rest of the album. We're confident of what we've put down on record and believe each song is strong, so fingers crossed interest does grow and there's some new Obiat fans by the end of the year. We think any fans of riffs, hard-hitting drums, groovy rhythm sections with a bit of psychedelia and powerful/soulful vocals will dig ‘Indian Ocean’.
Would you pinpoint any bands, or any kind of music, or anything else even, as important inspirations for what you do?
Raf: We are music fans and are constantly sharing things with each other, new and old. The new album’s sound is an outcome of all our influences. From classical through jazz, experimental, ambient to indie, rock and death metal. We started looking at writing new music before the dreaded Covid situation came in, but the lockdown and time to reflect helped us focus and inspired us to want to do more together musically. We could probably write a few pages about what we listen to, haha. Speaking for myself, I’m currently listening to Converge with Chelsea Wolfe. Portico Quartet and latest Immolation album.
Does the record have any sort of concept or a running theme, lyrically? Would you like to talk a bit about that? And are there songs that mean just a little more to you than others?
Raf: There is a concept behind the title. We created our own ‘Indian Ocean’ based on the ocean and its vastness, depth. The unknown, the space between us. The journeys people make and the thoughts that go through their heads. I will not bore you with the lyrics, these are pretty existential and I hope understandable enough. Apart from Sean’s poetry and input from Sofia (no4) we have Alex’s piece finishing the album: “Despite our best efforts some things are beyond our control and in the end nothing really matters. The world will keep turning after we're gone”. This is what ‘Lightness Of Existence’ is about. On this positive note, enjoy the music!
What can we expect from the future of Obiat? A more regular release schedule maybe? ;)
Raf: We certainly hope so, that is the plan. We did catch up with Sean recently at The World's End in Camden and the suggestion of an EP was favoured... But who knows, we only planned to do one song this time round and now we have a full album with 60+ minutes of music to showcase, so…
Find Obiat on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and on their official YouTube channel. ‘Indian Ocean’ comes out July 4th.