Oog Bogo: Beat Sessions cassette

Oog Bogo: Beat Sessions cassette


Tags: · 20s · hcpmf · indie · los angeles · melodic · punk
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Oog Bogo is a Los Angeles based outfit oozing from the deviant mind of songwriter Kevin Boog. Boog, along with a cohort of co-conspirators, dissolve a myriad of influences from rock and punk’s outer fringe into a sodium bicarbonate solution. Heat is applied to the mixture until it congeals into a highly potent and smokable material whose idiosyncratic vocal harmonies and manic, unhinged guitar work push and pull against an unrelentingly in-the-pocket rhythm section. This tape, the 12th edition of Shout Recordings’ nefarious Beat Sessions, closely replicates the band’s live dynamic. Tracked at Golden Beat Studios in Los Angeles by Mike Kriebel and Ty Segall, the release features a collection of songs reimagined and reverse engineered from the perverse home recordings of Boog featured on the band’s previous three releases. Recorded immediately after a tour of America’s West Coast and featuring Shelby Jacobson (gtr), Kriebel (gtr), and Marley Jones (dr), the arrangements are refined in a way that only the road can and these 11 songs erupt from the speaker. The performances here are focused, sharp, and completely disturbing.

Our take: The famed Beat Sessions series returns from a too-long absence with this set from LA punk band Oog Bogo. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Beat Sessions, they’re sort of like a punk rock version of the Peel Sessions. Engineer / producer / mastermind Mike Kriebel brings his favorite bands into his studio for a quick-and-dirty one-day recording session, and like the original Peel Sessions, the Beat Sessions are a magical combination of off-the-cuff performances and high fidelity acoustics, since Mike’s recordings are often much stronger than what these bands get on their own. Past Beat Sessions participants include underground heavyweights like Impalers, S.H.I.T., Uranium Club, and Institute. Oog Bogo might be less familiar than those bands to Sorry State’s readers. I hadn’t heard of them before this release, as they seem to exist in a world of lo-fi west coast garage-punk that is just outside of my radar screen’s range. It’s my loss, though, because I’ve enjoyed checking out their earlier recordings. While Oog Bogo’s earlier records vary in fidelity (their early EPs are lo-fi, their full-length less so), they’re all marked by a meticulous attention to texture, with most tracks weaving a range of different guitar and synth sounds into a rich sonic tapestry. The Beat Sessions, however, captures a different side of Oog Bogo, recording the group’s live lineup after tightening up these new arrangements on tour. Most songs revolve around two beefy-sounding guitars (one of which occasionally gets swapped out for a synth) and the rhythm section does what you need to do to catch the attention of the would-be fans who are drinking at the bar and smoking outside… i.e. they play hard and fast. Oog Bogo sounds like a punk band here, in the mold of high-energy groups like the Carbonas, the Dickies, Jay Reatard, the Marked Men… groups that wield pop songcraft like a sledgehammer. Mike Kriebel’s clear and powerful recording here only adds to the weightiness. I’m sure Oog Bogo’s existing fans will love these punked-up takes, and those of us who hadn’t heard their music yet get a punk-friendly entry point that’ll get us reaching for the rest of their discography.