Artist in Focus | The oOhz

Design via the oOhz and Google

Every so often, I stumble across bands that are intensely intuitive and eclectic. Being an avid fan of music, it comes as no surprise. Before I even considered (dreamt, in other words) that writing about music would slowly start becoming my job, finding unique artists was a frequent occurrence for me. 

Now that I have this site, I get weekly finds of such musicians that flow into my inbox. This week has been no different. Rather than introducing this musician/band myself, I’ll let them do the talking …

'The initial seed of the oOhz was sewn about 3.8 billion to 3.55 billion years ago. Eventually (and to cut a rather long and tedious story short), amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, together with a flurry of lightning strikes that provided the energy to form basic life forms, enabled many strange creatures to crawl out of this primordial oohz … and so, the process continues on and on, until the modern era – the latest whiz and bang line-up has just evaporated, so, it’s just me and Jack Jones for the mo … meanwhile, I have knocked out a few teasing ditties to toy with your shell-likes. Sticky-sweet sardonica with a pinch in the dark.'

The oOhz … even the name is as enigmatic as the music. 

Fronted by Andrew Tyler, the oOhz (formerly a five-piece) is a primordial one-man band of sorts, soaking up every genre under the sun to produce an array of worlds that cease to collide with one another. In the same vein of musicians such as Ween, The Talking Heads and Roxy Music, the oOhz strides itself in creating songs in ‘very divergent styles, from folk to punk to rock and pop,’ whilst also ‘writing new songs, upgrading recent ones, or ones from thirty years ago.’

Tyler not only creates vivid narratives through his creative songwriting through the current discography of the oOhz, but he also traverses the genre spectrum with innate ease. The oOhz does not have a specific record to explore, but Tyler’s SoundCloud is an absolute treasure trove when it comes to exploring what the oOhz has to offer. 

From the most recent tracks – ‘Party On’ and ‘Victory Sign’ – to tracks posted a year ago – ‘Slip Not’ and ‘Give It Some Love’ – the oOhz navigate the trajectories of experimental rock (‘Party On’), alternative/punk rock (‘Victory Sign’), and even a slice of sultry Latin rock (‘The Pole Dancer’). 

The 38-tracks uploaded to SoundCloud offer an eclectic day’s worth of listening to, spanning nearly every style one can think of. This is then coupled with the music videos that Tyler creates on his YouTube channel (all links will be listed below), making the musical odyssey of the oOhz even more personally crafted. 

‘Musicians’ of today’s pop-centric, radio-friendly atmosphere should take note.

Follow the oOhz on:

Soundcloud – theoohz 

YouTube – Andrew Tyler 

NMB Live – The oOhz 

Reverb Nation – The oOhz

Twitter – @lorrdlupine 

MySpace – @lordlupine 

LinkedIn - Andrew Tyler