The Octopus project is one of my most favorite bands ever. They are a local indie act who’ve been around for about a decade and I can’t get enough of em’. I remember when I first found out about them was in a Barns&Nobles. I saw the cover of their latest full length album, ‘Hello, Avalanche’, and loved the cover art I bought it right away. Turns out it was a great buy and I went to see them preform for the third time last night at the Mohawk.

Opening for them was a local band called Mother Falcon. They are a ten-17 piece mostly string ensemble. I believe most of them just graduated from high school a couple months ago. These kids just self-released their first 5 song EP entitled Still Life. Defiantly has a bit of a Ra Ra Riot sound, but does not lack originality.

01 Marigold

The second band was a trio of older dudes jamming. They rocked it, never caught their name though. They didn’t even have mics set up to talk to us or sing. They just jammed for 45 minutes with only two songs. The drummer really bought the group full circle with his outgoing stage presents. Very much enjoyed.

Then Octo Proj came on. Their music is kinda chill, but it is a chill that you can still have a dance party to, and that is exactly what we did. At one point they told the crowd to take off your shoes, and we did. I ended up hitting a wall of dehydration and had to leave the front for some water, but I made it back up there. Another awesome thing about octoproj is that they don’t use ordinary instruments. One of their main instruments is a Theremin. By moving your hands in the path of radio waves you make sound. People with good pitch can judge the sound and make music with it. I think it is the only musical instrument that isn’t physically touched to be played. Anyway, the girl from octoproj is a master at this instrument, which gives the band a very unique-spacy sound. Because they haven’t released a new full length since 2007 I was expecting mostly songs I’ve known for years, but they proved me wrong. They have a new full length album coming out soon called Hexadecagon. Hexadecagon was originally an experimental audio-video experience held in a Whole Foods parking lot. Octopus Project composed something like six new songs, somehow made video timed up to 8 projectors with the beat they were playing and had a surround sound situation going on all at the same time. It was incredible. They liked the songs so much they decided to put out an album of it. Now I can’t wait for some more Octopus Project for my ears.

Here is some of OP’s very first stuff.
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And some of their latest stuff.
01 Wet Gold

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